


Code of Silence

by Winterstar



Series: Sound of Silence [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra (Marvel), M/M, Memory Loss, Slavery, Torture, Violence, enslavement, more tags to come
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-07-11 00:02:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 55,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7014025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterstar/pseuds/Winterstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twenty-five years. It has been twenty five years since the resistance led by Tony Stark, Iron Man, and his love the Designate Steve Rogers took down the State. The State, a tyrannical government grown from Hydra, fell but left vestiges of hate boiling over to rise again. Long ago, Tony abandoned the fight to care for his love, Steve, who had been left imprisoned in his own body because of the neural net implanted by the State. Long ago, Tony promised his love that he would save him, that he would find a way to defeat the neural net. Long ago, he realized he might never be able to keep that promise. But the world is a different place and threats both familiar and new are brewing- a new war is starting. The world needs their Captain again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many many thanks to thegraytigress for her beta and her words of wisdom on this chapter. I did some changes so don't blame her for the mistakes!! Thanks so much!
> 
> I have a ton of other projects so the update will come but they will not be as fast as last time! But I have the story plotted out!
> 
> Dedication - For all of the Marvel fans who believe in Steve Rogers as a good man.....

Time marches on, its slow progress like an insidious disease ever moving toward its logical and inevitable end. He never meant for it to take so long, so fucking long, but it has and he needs to accept the fact that he’s lost so many days, weeks, months, years. He ticked them off like in one of those movies on a wall in his workshop – but then he ran out of room and chucked a can full of fuel at the wall and set it on fire. It seemed like the right thing to do. No one else thought so, no one else understands the pain that he suffers on a daily basis.

He watches and sees every day what happens to someone he loves. It reminds him of a disease all right – not cancer, not Alzheimer’s, but maybe something he’s invented along the way. No one denies him his pain, but they do tell him to put away the guilt. How can he? When everything he loves is wrapped up in something he can never have.

He promised – a long time ago – on the eve of going to the Grains, he made a promise. 

_I promise I will fix it._

Then again he made another promise, that his love’s surrender to the neural net implanted in his head would be temporary – Tony would find a way to fix it and he would be able to see and touch and be with his love again. 

_“I’m going to figure it out. I’m going to work night and day to figure it out.”_

_“You don’t have to, Tony. I want you to live a life. I’ll be fine.”_

_“Don’t tell me what I can do, or can’t do. I’m going to figure it out, if it takes me a life time. I am going to find a way to save you.”_

_“You saved the whole human race, Tony. How could I not believe you?”_

Nothing is ever that easy. 

His love had made every sacrifice humanly possible to save the world. When he’d been thawed by the tyrannical State, his love had awoken to a day when Hydra hadn’t been stopped by the downing of a plane and the vanquishing of the Red Skull. Sure, the world thought the Third Reich and the Axis fell when victory had been claimed after World War II. Right on the heels of WWII had been the Cold War – a war that some say had been manipulated by uncover Hydra agents to breakdown the world’s resistance to its ultimate plan. It worked – the plan – far more sinister than anyone could have ever imagined. A limited nuclear exchanged between the United States and the Soviet Union occurred and from the ashes the State grew up under President Pierce – a man who offered hope through order, justice through doctrine, and enslavement through the Designate system. Some, President Pierce had said in his inaugural speech, did not deserve the label of human, some needed to kowtow before their betters, some needed to be designated non-humans.

The Designate system had been instituted and most of the world cowered under the dictates of Hydra. Winning World War II meant nothing in the end, because Hydra had been sitting in the wings all the time, waiting to pounce. 

Of course, it had been the State who found the frozen Captain America. Of course, it had been the State to utilize the frozen Captain as a means to an end. They implanted the neural net into the Captain, infused him with nanites, changed him fundamentally. But the serum would never allow the implanted technology to work, not completely – and when the Captain – now Designate had been assigned to Tony as his Prime Designate of the Stark Ruling Family by Stane, the opportunity to change the world for better solidified.

How could they not win a war against the State with Captain America on their side?

Yet it had been a long road, a perilous one, since the good Captain had been marked as a Designate and his neural net was always in a state of semi-failure. Though as a hero, he persevered and gave himself over to the cause, even though the pain and agony of it would surely tear away what little hope he had left for himself. In the end, his sacrifice allowed the resistance to conquer the Triskelion and take down the main forces of the State. Though it left Tony’s love disabled – he’d nearly died – did die a few times before they were able to bring him back. The only way he could be the good Captain again was in a condition where he would be paralyzed from the neck down. His love chose a different path, he was a man of action. He asked for the inhibitor to partially block the effects of the serum on the implanted neural net system. This would allow him to function and move, but it would also take away any of his self-determination. He would be forever locked in an internal prison as a Designate.

Unless Tony found a way to save him.

He failed – but what’s worse is that he failed his love. Even after everything he hid during the time they were together, his love believed him – in the end believed that he would make it better. And he never did.

Tony curses Erskine every fucking day. Throughout the years, he’s spent months going over all of the pittance worth of notes the good scientist left on the serum. The notes – most of what’s left – are incomplete. A lot of what had been saved the State had in its archives. Surprisingly the State kept miraculous records. Taking all of the information together never amounts to much. He married them up with the notes his father scribbled and tried to put all of the information together. But two plus two never made four – they always made eight or fucking eighteen or something else and he can’t find the pattern – he can’t put them together because there’s not enough information on the serum. Even with every little scrap he’s found, he still doesn’t have enough information, not enough data. He feels like he’s an astronomer looking for signs of alien life but only pointing his telescope at the barren moon.

The serum is the sticking point of getting his love back. 

It isn’t like anything any of the scientists can parse. It changed the genomic code, but it did it not only on a level of nucleotide bases but it also played the instrument of the DNA and switched the epigenome as well – changing how genes are expressed, playing with the different RNAs and regulators. It’s all so fucked up that Tony cannot even figure out how the fuck Erskine ever managed to make it work in the first place. 

It is Betty Ross who figures it out. She tells him in the quiet of his lab on a particularly frustrating day that it isn’t the serum – it’s him. He’s not sure what she means and then she looks over at Tony’s love – who has been lost to him for too long. Again she says it’s him, and Tony understands. The underlying genetic code made the serum work. It will never work again like that, never. The code was unique and there’s no other way to reproduce that so Tony needs to approach the problem from a different avenue, a new angle. 

He burnt the lab down that day.

He admits he might have had a tantrum. After that he moved his life to the island and the beach. He built what he calls the compound. It’s magnificent with its mansion, pool house, workshop, garden house, and residences for both guests and for anyone in his employ. The lands beyond the beach are elegantly sculpted and pools both decorative and useful dot the landscape. He can do these things when the money is there and he can own an island.

It was a good thing to move. They all needed a break from the intensity of life under the Dome – where the main headquarters of the new government was located - and the rebuilding of the world. It wasn’t a clean win over the State. There were pockets of State sympathizers that kept fighting for the State’s way. Of course there were areas of the No Man’s Land that just went nuts and ended up as places even worse than the State. 

The battle had just begun with the take down of the Triskelion. All that sacrifice and Tony still felt like he was fighting and falling down all the damned time. He felt like he was never going to win and that it was all for naught. Maybe now was the time for the next generation to take over the fight – he needed to concentrate on his family and his life. His loved ones became his main concern.

Trying to focus only brings him back to his failure. Tony promised before the Grains and then again before the final procedure that he would succeed and he would be able to win the war against the neural net. Betty might be right about his love’s underlying code being so unique and so different that it makes all the serum changes that much more complex, but he knows it is more than that. So he spent hours and hours and hours streaming genetic codes in blue lettering above his head in this workshop by the shores of the island. It all comes down to one thing.

Finally after too long he figures out that part of the problem that’s stopping all progress– not genetic codes, not the serum, not the net itself – but the nanites. One of the reasons he can’t get the damned neural net to accept an Extremis fix are the nanites. He got it to work with Barnes because Barnes had a first generation of the implant/nanites system as well as a broken form of the serum. Teasing out the differences there – he focused on how it worked instead of how his problem didn’t work with Extremis.

It takes months. It takes years.

He lives at the beach house now, with all of his family. He moved them out of the way of the battles and the wars to this quiet, secluded place on an island far away from all the madness. Here he raised a family – Ava and Conor. He won and lost in that regard. He built a workshop, he transferred a Stark-Designate net to his property. He installed a pod. Everything would be beautiful and bright as he watches the ocean, but none of it is.

Ava and Conor became his one destination, a purpose he grew devoted to over time as he couldn’t save his love from the neural net. 

Ava and Conor.

The children of his love.

They are the forced progeny of his love – the beginnings of a new world order of Designates that would be healthier, stronger because of the serum. His love had been found in the ices of the Arctic, thawed and used, turned into the non-human class called Designates. Ava and Conor had been children of his abuse, the forced progeny. When the State fell, Tony and the rest of the resistance saved Ava and Conor. By association, they had become his children as well as his love’s. Tony’s thoughts sink when he thinks of his love, how he lives, how he barely survives what was done to him by the State. 

His love is a prisoner inside a body that’s familiar but alien to Tony. He keeps a distance between them even though he knows that it hurts and causes pain to his love. He sees it in his eyes, in the way he seizes anytime he offers his body to Tony and Tony declines. 

He tried once – because he couldn’t deal with the thought of another episode, another seizure that would send his love into the pod for three days of re-adjustment. When he would come out of the pod he would be nearly catatonic and unresponsive. So. Tony tried. He allowed his love to take him but everything felt cold and ugly and he eventually pushed the Designate away. That only caused one of the worst episodes – a seizure that lasted long into the pod, and worse. When he came out of the re-adjustment from the pod, he kept punishing himself until Tony had to threaten him again.

It still turns his stomach when he recalls those moments in the kitchen, yelling at him, telling him to stop – that he wouldn’t allow the Designate to serve him anymore, that he was deficient if he kept up the self-harm.

It killed something inside of Tony.

He’s still ashamed at what he did that night. After he put the children to bed. After his love had been hooked up into the pod, Tony called one of his trusted staff to watch the children. He took his private helicopter to the mainland and spent the night with a prostitute he picked up on the street corner. He let the man blow him and then he fucked the guy against a building. He can still hear the echoes of the hooker’s grunts as Tony spilled into him. After the waves of disgust washed over him and he threw the money down only to stagger out of the alley way and puke near the side of a building. He’d almost not gone home. He’d almost flown the helicopter into the sea. He wanted to. He still dreams of sinking into the warm waters of the sea, letting it engulf him. 

Somehow he found the courage to fly home. Somehow he greeted the children in the morning. Somehow when he saw his love he didn’t break down and scatter the shards of his heart all of the floor. 

At the same time, it drove him further into trying to save his love. Ava helps him. She’s dedicated and talks about her Da with such love and devotion Tony doesn’t know where she came from or why. Conor is another story. While Ava had been devoted and sweet to their imprisoned father, Conor resented him. From the time he was a small child, Conor treated his father with a kind of disdain that can only be taught to a child. Tony knew this was a vestige of Pierce’s influence over Conor. Many times over the years, Conor blamed Tony and his Da for killing who he called his ‘Grandfather’. Tony thought it would eventually die away.

It never did.

As the years progressed Conor’s rebellion grew more treacherous. As a toddler he’d beaten and hit his father. Tony tried to teach him to respect his Da, but Conor only called him a dirty Designate. At ten years of age, something changed in Conor – he became calm even understanding. Tony had believed that they had finally turned the corner. Until the day he came home from the market to find Conor trying to drown his Da. 

“He’s a dirty fucking Designate. I can do it. He didn’t listen to my orders,” Conor screamed, his blonde hair wild and his blue eyes a mockery of his Da’s.

“He’s your father and you’ll respect him,” Tony replied and helped his love out of the garage where Conor had set up a bucket that he’d been holding his Da’s head under water. 

“Look at him, he’s a fucking idiot. I bet you like to fuck him and watch how he sucks you off like a robot,” Conor said.

Tony lashed out and slapped the boy across the face, leaving a hand print. It startled a kind of fear into Tony. He yelled at the boy to get to his room. He finally got his love settled and dry he went back to the garage to clean up the mess to find a battery next to the bucket with leads. It only froze Tony’s heart when he saw it and considered what the hell Conor was planning.

It just got worse from there. Thinking about it only brings the horror of the memories and the guilt. He’s not sure where he failed Conor, how the boy couldn’t get it, refused to understand how people are equal, how people are not segmented into classes.

That brought on an entire new argument with the boy. Conor had been tormenting Ava about her school work. She often flew to the mainland to take in-depth studies in advance technology courses. Once they had a debate about fairness and equality.

“You’re a hoot, you know that?” Conor had said as they sat on the deck overlooking the ocean. They were young teens at the time.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ava said as she helped her Da with potting some flowers. It seemed to soothe his love’s soul to care take of even flowers and plants. 

“You keep talking about social justice and look at you? You know nothing about equality. Equality isn’t what you think it is.” He scoffed at her. “You fly to the mainland, take courses, shop. You live in a fucking compound with guards and every single luxury at your fingertips and you say you understand the poor.”

“I don’t say I understand the poor, I say I want to help,” Ava responded.

“Help them by making them Designates. Look dear old Da is happy. Look at how idiotic he is and he’s happy.”

The argument escalated after that – until Tony had to step in and pull the two thirteen year olds apart. Conor spat at them and laughed afterwards, especially when he said, “Hey Da, you happy serving me. You’d do anything for me, right?”

Tony tried to step in and stop it. “Conor, respect your father.”

Conor ignored him. “Crawl to me.”

His father dropped to his knees and followed the order. Tony’s heart plummeted at the same time. 

He wipes away the thoughts, the memories do him no good to dwell upon, they only serve to remind him what he needs to do and that is to fix his love . He picks up the tablet and goes through the data again. Ava always laughs at him for using such devices.

“Why do that, Pops? You can just access them in your brain?” she had said one day not too long ago. She’d been home that day, her long dark hair mussed up from the armor and her eyes were still glittering with the dazzling adventure of being Iron Woman – though he had a tendency to call her Iron Maiden, which she despised. 

He hadn’t told her. He does it because of his love. His love, that last Designate in the Free World, also has problems processing new things. The net is failing him and processing new things causes all kind of issues. When they moved to the island he spent a week in a frozen state, only his eyes moving as he tried and failed to figure it out. It felt so wrong and awful that Tony nearly gave up and shipped them back to the snowy plains of the Dome. In the end, he’d been able to tweak the neural net enough that it accepted the island beach house and the rest of the compound as its home. 

Because of that he never brings his love anywhere else. His love is trapped in a house by the ocean – a large 5600 square foot house and the compound– but still isolated and imprisoned not only in his head but on an island. So Tony forgoes using anything that might freak out his love. He knows that he can access Extremis without his love knowing, but he tries not to do it when he’s around – it feels rude and sacrilegious to do it.

Right now, his love, his Designate sits at the table with a toddler on his lap as Tony watches from the counter bar in the kitchen. He’s smiling and it warms Tony’s heart. The baby – he’s Ava’s and he’s a handful – claps as the Designate sings the alphabet to him. It should be the happiest days now. Tony and his love – grandparents – but it is far from those greeting card days. Underlying everything is the truth.

Twenty-five years.

Twenty-five years and he failed.

Twenty five years, that fact keeps coming up, keeps blocking out all cogent ideas as if it is the Great Wall of China. He needs to study the data, ensure that everything is on target, but the anniversary of Steve’s hibernation is upon him and Tony cannot think of anything else – except that he failed. A promise is something sacred, a vow and throughout the years. Tony tried to change things. He attempted different processing events and protocols, but nothing worked. In fact most of the time whatever he instituted turned out much worse and it took days and weeks to get things back to rights again. 

He doesn’t know how he did it, not with two little ones afoot and the world to fix. He has to admit that bringing them to the island had been the best situation for all of them – well maybe not Conor. But it did wonders after his love adjusted. The quiet rhythm of the ocean, the open house with its broad bright windows and French doors opening to the sea. Even the furniture and the decorations echoed the beach house feeling, a forever vacation from the worries of yesterday – except that they continued to plague Tony.

The toddler jumps down and interrupts Tony’s thoughts as he races over to him with arms outstretched. “Gran’pa.”

Tony discards the tablet and picks up Steven, holding him close and kissing his hair. He looks so much like his Designate that it hurts somewhere deep inside – it bleeds and floods into his chest like an ever raging river. In a moment, his Designate stands and joins them. His eyes are kind, always kind when he looks upon the child and upon Tony. His love has always attempted to serve. With the serum partially inhibited, his love became the model Designate with a compliance rating of nearly 98% - something that had never been attained by all of his trainers of the State back before, before everything was sacrificed. It wasn't only the inhibition of the serum, but also the corruption of the nanites and the core itself within the neural net. The programming and the installed new Designate Web that Tony designed to help stabilize the issues led to catastrophic failures. Thus, his love’s resistance to the neural net was muted and essentially vanished. Conor had taken advantage of that fact throughout the years. He twists that memory aside and turns back to his love as he stands nearby like a shadow of his former self.

His love’s earnest and hopeful expression peels away at Tony’s skin like his flesh is flayed. Knowing that his love trusted him and he failed spears into like a knife to the gut. 

“Sir, it’s nice outside. I’ll take him so he won’t disturb your work,” the Designate says and points to the tablet on the counter. 

He thinks for a moment of denying his Designate. Having Steven in his arms, holding this lovely child, brings him hope. At the same time it somehow magnifies his despair. Yet, saying no to his love would mean hurting him again, even in the smallest of ways.

“Okay, have fun. Don’t go too far. The web.”

“The web, yes sir. I won’t defy you,” the Designate says and he nods. He won’t defy him – no because every last drop of Steve Rogers is gone, dead. He assassinated Steve twenty five years ago. 

“Have fun,” he repeats but it feels dry in his throat. His love picks up his little doppelganger and they race to the French doors looking out upon the white sands and the emerald ocean waves. At this time of the day in the late in the afternoon, the sun reflecting off the ocean waves mesmerizes him. It helps to soothe the weight of the burden that would have long ago slumped his shoulders if Extremis didn't run through his coded DNA. He’s still young with vigor because of Extremis. Even his Designate’s aging has slowed. Both Tony and his love have only aged a few years in the two and a half decades of life since the end of everything. The partially inhibited serum and the net may battle over dominance but the serum has put the brakes on his love’s aging – sparing him time to figure out a way to save him. 

A frown curves his lips as he watches the waters; this place, this secret cove is so much more inviting and pleasant than that of the Dome that had housed the nascent movement all those years ago. It's warm and lovely, and the beaches of the island lure his love to them daily. Tony clears his throat and blinks several times, trying to lie to himself. But the emotion burns his eyes and not the glare of the sun.

He needs to balance four opposing forces – the serum, the original gene sequences, the neural net, and the nanites. He strikes him that he’s always consider this from a biomedical point of view instead of a physics one. Logically he understands that it is deeply enmeshed in the biology of the genes, but what if he considered it a problem of Force. The four different objects exerting Force upon one another – how would that ring out?

It isn’t until he hears the back door open that he realizes he’s spent a good hour and a half working on his Force related scenario. He looks up from his tablet, his eyes tired, his brain throbbing from not accessing Extremis when it would have been so easy to do so. Through the long hallway Ava walks into the kitchen. She’s been off duty as Iron Woman for the last three months. She’d been injured trying to mop up the mess of the Grains that still afflicts the world. Luckily, with the serum affecting her genes, she heals more quickly – though not as fast as her father. 

“Hey, Pops what are you up to?” She has shopping bags clutched in her arms. “I went to the open market today. The mangos are to die for.”

“Just working.” He doesn’t say on what. He often wonders who her mother might have been, with her long dark wavy hair and her lovely blue-green eyes. He drops the tablet and stands up. He checks the beach to the front of the house and finds his love and his grandchild making castles in the wet sand. 

“Not again,” Ava says and drops the cloth bag on the counter top. “Really, Pops, you need to rest too. Plus not accessing Extremis like you should, damn. I don’t want to be called back here if you have another migraine episode.”

He pops up on his toes and kisses her cheek. She’s tall; nearly two meters. “I won’t do anything for you to worry about it. I monitor my use all the time.”

“Sure you do,” she replies and then peers out the windowed doors. “He seems happy lately.”

Tony doesn’t respond; Ava needs to know that her Da is happy, that living like he does isn’t a sentence to be forever in limbo status like an inmate on death row. She watches her son and her Da through the windows, her features soften as Steven runs around in a circle in the wet sand and his love digs in the sand. She repeats, “He’s happy, I think.”

But Tony knows better. He grimaces but turns away quickly so she doesn’t catch his expression. “Pepper and Rhodes are coming down for the holiday.”

The holiday – the day the Triskelion fell – the day the world declared its independence from the State. The day Tony’s nightmare only expanded and became so much worse.

“Yeah, I heard. That’s great,” Ava says as she starts to unpack the groceries. “I think the boys might join them.” She separates out the vegetables from the fruits, packing the vegetables into the refrigerator.

He shakes his head. Why she calls Bucky, Clint, and Sam the boys is beyond him. They’re old enough to be her uncles – and in many ways they are. But he called them that a few times when she was just a young girl so she always refers to them as ‘the boys’. 

“You know, it isn’t like the three musketeers,” he says.

She laughs and it sings through the air. He wonders if his love’s laughter was ever like that at all. He barely got to know his love, so he’d never really heard him laugh with such freedom. The guilt tightens around Tony’s throat like a noose. They should have left his love in the ice. Maybe that would have been better than this meager existence he lives now, barely aware. Tony banishes the thought and goes to Ava’s side to help her.

“They act like it.” Ava pulls out a bowl and lines up the fruit she purchased. “Going out on missions with them to clean out the Grains was something else.”

“They’re too old to keep doing that,” Tony comments as he pops a few blueberries into his mouth.

“Well, Bucky’s not, he’s still young and spry with Extremis and the serum in his veins. Plus Sam has the Extremis fix too, Pops. You seem to forget that.” She giggles then. “Plus Uncle Buck had a bone to pick with the Grains.”

“Don’t mention that around your Da.”

“Oh, I know better,” she laughs. “Da gets all willy about the Grains. I don’t know why. He wasn’t there ever, right?”

The memories of the Grain percolate up hitting him hard. The Grains are in the No Man’s Land – a place where all hell broke loose when the State ruled most of the world. The Grains near Lake Erie in Upstate New York referred to old grain elevators that had been converted to vast empires of depravity. Many of the Ruling Families within the State and other powerful people would bring throw away Designates to the Grains to do with as they pleased – the gross and vile actions still haunt Tony. He had to go there, once with Steve. There Tony had been able to find his way to securing a working copy of Extremis. Extremis was supposed to be the way to fix all the Designates. Unfortunately, it left one without a fix at all. In response to Ava’s question about Steve’s interaction at the Grains -Tony grabs the fruit to wash it. He won’t tell her about the Grains and what transpired there. “Your Da needs his peace. You know that.”

Ava sighs and then shakes her head. “You really need to get out of here for a while. Get some fresh air and I don’t mean the beach. Why don’t you go visit Bruce? Or Jane? They have a nice facility in Toronto. It might do you some good to play scientist outside these four walls.”

“There’s more than four walls,” Tony snaps. He doesn’t mean to be harsh, but he can’t leave. He can never leave his love again. He did once – a long time ago. 

The worst incident happened around the time Conor turned fifteen. They had recently moved to the island. Conor hadn't been pleased. They were far away from home and his scene, as he called it. He grumbled and complained, but Tony ignored it as teenaged strife. Until the day Tony was called away as Iron Man to put down some pockets of State sympathizers. When he had returned to the island (along with Bucky who had wanted to visit), the sheer horror of what he'd found sealed Conor's fate. 

Tony’s love had been trussed up on the beach and used as target practice while Ava had been beaten and thrown in her room, locked and sealed. The staff had been run off. Saving his love and Ava had been his first priority but Bucky went ballistic, nearly trashing the entire house and complex as he charged after Conor. Calling the armor to him, Tony stopped it – though why he did he cannot say. He should have let Bucky tear Conor limb from limb like his god damned grandfather, but Tony interceded and saved the trash. He kicked him out, sent him back to Canada to live under Bruce’s watchful eye. 

He called in specialists and doctors. The only way to save Tony’s love they concluded had been removing the inhibitor. In order to save his love, Tony had to take him off of the drug that partially inhibited the serum. It caused all kinds of wonky side effects including a Rescission event and partial paralysis while Tony worked on the worst of the injuries. Recovering from nearly mortal wounds his love spent many of those days in a coma. But then right before they set him up to receive more of the inhibitor, he’d awoken. 

The moment still burns in Tony’s memory like it is happening, like it is today, like it is right in front of him.

His love had looked around the hospital room, eyes light and frightened as if he’d only now realized that something had happened. It almost felt surreal and Tony still wonders what had gone through his head – was he remembering Pierce? Was he recalling the terror of being trapped inside of his body? Or was it the ice that came to him?

“Am I any help to you?”

The words had stunned Tony and he dropped the tablet that he held with all of his love’s vital statistics on it. It clattered to the floor, cracking. “What?”

“Am I any help to you?”

The way he asked, the way he looked at Tony with only his eyes to move told Tony so much more than he wanted to know. Because at the moment the Designate dissipated, at that moment he had his love back.

He’d swallowed down the horror, rushed to his side, and clamped his hand around his love’s. But it didn’t matter because the fingers didn’t clutch back at him – the paralysis robbed him of movement in the absence of the inhibitor. “Yes, you are, yes. I don’t think I could have made it through the years without you.”

“Years.”

“Only a few,” Tony lied because he couldn’t tell him the truth – that it had been nearly fifteen and that his son had tortured him, nearly fucking crucified him on the beach and used him for target practice with various instruments and weapons. He added to the lie. “We’re close, very close to the solution. Only a little while now.

“I miss you.”

This non-sequitur froze Tony. Up until that moment, he'd thought in his Designate state that his love was unaware of his misfortune, as if he slept through the horror. At that moment, the realization dawned on Tony and his hand shook, his vision tunneled, and he stopped everything. It meant his love knew. He witnessed. His love had been trapped as a prisoner in his own head. 

He doesn't recall his reaction or what he might have said. The funneling light, the constriction of his entire reality occurred and Tony shifted. He always worked on the problem of his love's neural net, but in many cases as they rebuilt the world from the ground up, it had sometimes taken a backseat. Missions, governance, laws all piled unto his shoulders. From that moment forward he prioritized. He retired from everything else and the state of the world was given over to others with very capable hands. It stopped being Tony's concern. Bringing his love back to health and caring for Ava after Conor’s meltdown consumed Tony. He tried to convince his love to stay again. But lying helpless for the rest of his life would never be something that he would agree to. Tony knew that. 

He would not be a burden and he would not be helpless – but Tony would never be able to convince him. In the end though, it had been the Rescission that made the decision for them. The inhibitor was the only thing that stopped it from causing a fatal breakdown and brain damage. 

Before Tony rebooted his love’s neural net, Ava had finally met her father. His mind and his determination, his sassiness. She spent hours with him as he lay in the bed recovering from what her brother had done to him.

“Consider going away for a while, okay? I can stay with him,” Ava says pulling him out of his reverie. She stows some of the groceries as she talks. “I’m not some skinny little fifteen year old anymore. I am Iron Woman.”

“Iron Maiden.”

“Don’t, Pops,” she says but she laughs anyhow. “You need to get out of here. He’ll be okay. I’m here to take care of everything. I need to be with Steven anyhow. I’ve missed so much being away and serving.”

Ava had become his guiding light, his one soul he held onto without regard for his own safety. She studied under his tutelage, grew up to be an intelligent, self-determined woman with a mind of her own and a mission – to stop the growth of Hydra where ever and whenever she could. She became Iron Woman – he designed all of his suits for her now and rarely went out on missions. The only time she stopped her work had been when she became pregnant. For those months, she stayed with them on their safe haven island. During those months, they were a family again.

She deserves more than a drone for a Da. “Maybe. I need to finish up this latest analysis.”

Sighing she shakes her head and starts to cut the strawberries. “Pops, I wish you would stop. It’s hard enough knowing that he’s never going to be free of it, but to have you – you imprisoned by it too? It hurts.”

“I’m not-.”

“Sure you are,” Ava says. “Twenty-five years. And you are the most devoted husband I’ve ever seen, but you need to release yourself from this burden.”

He throws the fruit in the sink and hisses, “Your Da is not a burden. He’s never been a burden. He’s my responsibility. He’s like this because he sacrificed everything, everything to save the world. People seem to forget who Steve Rogers is. He’s a fucking hero, not some drone of the State, not some damned Hydra lackey.”

“I didn’t mean that,” Ava says and drops her knife to turn to him. “I’m concerned for you. You haven’t lived a life.”

“I have, and I am happy. We’re here raising Steven while you’re out there raising hell. I’m fine here. I’m good. And I need to find a way to make save him. For the world, the world is an ugly place when Steve Rogers, the hero, isn’t in it. It’s ugly and horrible. I need to save him for the world.”

He shudders as the tears take him again. He’s never broken down in front of her before and he tries not to let her arms go around him or to feel her soft breath as she embraces him.

“Pops, please,” she whispers. 

In seconds, he pulls himself together and feels foolish and tiny because of it. He backs away from her and says, “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about me.”

“How can I not? You’re doing it right now. Ignoring your own health and welfare for him.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Tony says. 

“You’re more my father than he is,” Ava spits out and Tony shivers with anger.

He needs to step away to get away but just then the door opens and little Steven stands there with his mouth in a small circle and his eyes wide. Both of them freeze and then Steven starts to wail.

He rushes along with Ava over to Steven. She gathers him up in her arms and kisses his tear stained cheek. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Gran’pa and me were just talking. It isn’t a big deal, sweetie.”

Tony reaches out to stroke Steven’s hair, touching him gently and trying to calm him. “Momma and Gran’pa love one another. Big time, kiddo. It’s nothing.”

The toddler takes a few gulping breathes and tries to stop the horrific sobbing, but it’s just getting worse and worse. His nose runs, his eyes are tightly closed, and he’s bawling for all the world to hear. “Come on, maybe we should bring him inside,” Tony directs and stands up from the doorway. 

Ava heaves Steven into her arms and brings him through the living room with its wide summer rattan couches and glass tables. She settles in one of the chairs with its big blue plush cushions and rocks Steven in her arms. “Do you want some strawberries, baby?”

Steven isn’t going to be soothed that easily. He shakes his head and kicks his feet, struggling to get away from her. She kisses his crown and for a moment all the ugliness and the failure melts away in Tony’s eyes and all he can see is just how beautiful and lovely she is with her child. He doesn’t know the father – he never asked and she wasn’t open about it. But to Tony, she’s everything to him and he can only be happy to know that she’s his greatest success. Even with how tender Ava tries to be, Steven isn’t having any of it. He screams louder, howling with despair.

“Steven, stop,” Tony says and kneels next to the chair. “Your momma is trying to help you out.”

“Ma-ma-.” He screams and struggles against her arms. Her expression falls and she hands him over to Tony.

“I guess he wants you.” She doesn’t meet Tony’s gaze only wipes at her eyes and then lets her hands drop into her lap.

Tony accepts Steven, but he tries to brush it off. “He’s tired. No nap yet. He’s been playing on the beach all afternoon with Da.”

Even in Tony’s arms, Steven throws a tantrum and belts Tony in the face before he can get the child under control. “Steven, that’s not nice. What did I tell you about using your words?”

The boy cries harder and kicks Tony in the belly sharp enough to make him gasp. It causes him to loosen his grip and the toddler wiggles free. “Da, Da!” He screams through mouthful of crying bouts.

“Wh-what?” Tony says and then it hits him. His love is not here, not in the house, not on the porch as he looks out through the French doors to the sea. “Jesus Christ, where is he?”

“Pops?” Ava asks as she follows him to his feet and out of the doors to the deck. 

“Oh, fuck,” Tony says as he spots his love collapsed in the sands as the water washes over his legs. “Jesus, Christ.” This is all his fault. He dashes toward the edge of the waters, the undulations of the sand making it hard to keep his balance. Ava follows him, but she must scoop up Steven first. 

She’s panting beside him with the boy in her arms. The toddler’s pointing and sobbing as they approach the unconscious figure. 

Tony drops to his knees and turns his love over. His eyes are open but rolled back in his head. He’s mid-seizure. “Christ.” He hasn’t had one of these in years, not this bad either. His body is rigid, his muscles spasm under Tony’s touch. Tony looks up at Ava who is grief-stricken, her eyes wide and his expression a grimace. 

“Go back to the house, to my workshop, and get the portable pod.”

“The what?” Ava says and cradles a still weeping Steven in his arms.

“Portable pod, portable pod. JARVIS will tell you where it is. Just get it and get it fast.”

Ava stalls for a moment to look at her Da still in the throes of a seizure. Tony gestures and waves to her. “No stopping, go, go, go!”

She plops Steven down in the sand next to Tony and then hurries back to the main house of their compound. Tony doesn’t look at the sweeping mansion, the pool house beyond it, the workshop just to the right of it. He concentrates on his love who is in the middle of a seizure, who is frothing at the mouth, who has blood dripping from one ear. Gently, Tony turns him over to check the implant and then lays him flat on the sand again. His hands are bloody, the neural net pours blood out of it. 

“Catastrophic failure,” he whispers and can barely see due to the tears in his eyes that blur his vision, washing away all of his hopes. He graces a hand down his love’s face as he quiets, as the seizure relaxes and releases him. Ava comes back with the small case in her hand. It isn’t any bigger than a hat box. 

Little Steven stops crying and clings to his mother as she settles next to her father on the opposite side. He buries his face in her shoulder and murmurs, “Da hurt.”

“Yes, baby, Da is hurt.” 

Getting to the case, he snaps it open and pulls out the helmet. As he slips it over to his love’s head, he says, “I need you to get in the armor. He’s going to have to be carried back inside. We have to put him in a pod.”

“Okay. Steven, stay here.”

“No, take him inside. I need to-.” Tony chews on the words because they are so difficult, so hard. “Just take him inside.”

“I don’t want to leave him alone.”

Tony turns to Steven and says, “Stevie, we need you to go inside and go to your room for a little while. Can you have JARVIS watch you?”

“Da hurt?”

“Yes, and I’m going to take care of him, but you need to go inside.” Tony waits as the waters rush about his ankles and the warm waters of the Caribbean beckon like a lover. He glances out to the sea and wonders what it would feel like just to walk into it until he couldn’t walk anymore.

“Da go’ng be okay?”

“We’re going to try,” Tony says. “Now go with Momma, okay?”

Steven’s big blue eyes gaze at him and then at his Momma. “Okay. Da play later?

“Once he feels better,” Tony replies. He gives the boy a quick hug and then Ava clasps his hand and they head back to the house. Tony focuses his attention on the portable pod casing, getting it up and running and then tenderly lifting his love’s head. As he places the contraption around his head, his eyes open. “There you go.”

His love grunts and jerks as Tony tries to get the probe set in his implant at the base of his brain. The movement causes issues and Tony has to reprimand him. 

“Designate, stop.” 

At that order, his love’s eyes narrow and he licks his lips. There’s something potent and heavy in his expression. He pushes away from Tony but then his body collapses and he falls back into the sand. 

“Shit. Come on. Stop it.” He hates to use the coded words, the words that cause his love to go deep into Designate mode. He will if he has to. But then his love does something he hasn’t in years. He stops and then slowly meets Tony’s gaze. His eyes fill with something, something like hope but with pain sprinkled throughout as if it’s a dream that can never be. He glances at the blood on Tony’s hands and then at the ocean washing at their feet like a baptism.

“Designat-.” Tony rasps and everything hurts because at the moment Tony knows, knows it to his bones. He’s not talking to the Designate at all, he’s not talking to the automaton.

His love opens his mouth and mouths a word as if it is foreign to his lips, as if it might scorch and burn if he says it out loud, but then he chances it – slowly purposefully and it causes something so painfully bright to burst out of Tony that it may splinter him completely.

“Tony?”

Tony gasps for breath and the discarded portable pod in his hands feels wrong and he tosses it aside as his love says it again.

“Tony?” His eyes are questions, his mouth agape in wonder.

“Steve,” Tony says and he hasn’t allowed himself to think about the significance of that name in many, many years. He stopped using it for the man in front of him more than a decade ago. “Steve?”

“Tony, I-.” And then it happens, his head flings back and he topples to the sands his whole body rigid with spasms. 

“Steve? Steve?” Tony cannot see. He’s blinded by the tears but he wipes them away, leaving grit and sand across his cheeks. “Come on.” He feels lost and alone. Peering up at the house, he searches for Ava but she must be having trouble with Steven. He turns his attention to Steve again and there’s blood everywhere, from his nose, from his ears. “Not like this, not like this.”

Tony grapples and pulls Steve into his arms as his love’s body slumps from the fit, exhausted and limp. Blood runs from his implant and it’s a horror and it’s death and Tony cannot accept this. “Not like this, fuck, not like this.”

Ava comes out of the workshop with her armor on, the last of the sun rays glinting of the polished silver and blue metal. She’s a dream and beautiful – a vision. But there’s nothing left for her to save. 

Tony rocks the limp form of Steve in his arms and feel the shame of failure, the coldness of despair, and the bitter heat of anger. All of the emotions combined cannot measure the pain of love lost. 

 

********************************


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank thegraytigress for her beta edit as well as the support she gives me in my writing every day. Thanks so much!

He tries to settle in his skin but it feels tight, wrapped around him like barbed wire. He scans the sky and wants to pace but keeps his feet firmly planted in place – near the window as the rain pelts the pane. He searches the air field, the sky, waiting to spot the plane incoming from the mainland. He shouldn’t be here. He should be there- home with his love, but he needs to see this through. He needs to do what has to be done. He goes deep into Extremis, accesses the fly schedule – the plane is overdue. He tracks the latest reports and doesn’t see anything to make him worry. He surfaces from his link to Extremis and stares out the window. The weather sucks. A tropical depression hit the islands late last night, and the storm blasts the land transforming into a battle field of Mother Nature. Everything is secure at the compound, and he wishes that Rhodes and Pepper had canceled coming in, but they hadn’t seen him in ages and he suspects they are coming in to deliver more bad news about the world outside. Tony could find it out in an instant with his link to Extremis, but he chooses to ignore a certain part of his world. 

The wind rattles the window pane again and Tony squeezes his fists inside the front pocket of the windbreaker he’s wearing. He scans the sky for the jet. It’s too dangerous for them to be coming in; he should have insisted that they stay away but when he talked to Pepper she’d refused to listen to him. Which wasn’t anything new.

“It’ll be okay. The weather isn’t that bad.”

“It’s a fucking hurricane, Pepper. You heard of those right? They name them because they are evil, like Hydra level evil,” he said.

The video feed flickered because of the oncoming storm and for an instant he thought he saw something shift over her face as if she tried to suppress a reaction, a thought, or a stray emotion. But then she turned to that professional attitude again, smiling at him, and shaking her head. Nothing he said dissuaded her. 

As he watches the palm trees bend with the force of the wind, he curses. He does not need another fucking thing to worry about – not now not when he barely got his love stabilized and back into the pod. He’s haunted now, horribly and completely haunted by the look in his love’s eyes.

Because it wasn’t the Designate, the servant, the mindless slave, but Steve – it had been Steve.

Steve.

He rubs his temple and his hand trembles so he stuffs it back into his pocket. He can’t think about Steve- he can’t. Because as fast as he was there – he was consumed again by the damned neural net and the malfunctioning nanites. Gone, abducted away from him. They’d been cheated out of so many years, so many moments of life. Shit, his love missed his children growing up. He missed the world trying to right itself again. He missed Tony being achingly, hopelessly in love with him. 

There were times that Tony had been tempted- so tempted to bring his love back to him, regardless of the consequences. But Steve had requested this state so that he wouldn’t be paralyzed. Steve had a choice, to be paralyzed and free of the neural net, or to be under the command of the implant and not be paralyzed. He chose the latter because he’d thought he would be more help – because he trusted Tony to save him – because he trusted Tony not to take advantage of him. Yet, Tony had wanted to talk to his love without that blank stare festering in his eyes. He wanted to touch him and know that he acknowledged it as something he wanted, not something programmed into him. 

Tony twists his mouth and bites back the fears. He cannot do what he’s been asked not to do. It would be a betrayal. How long can he go on like this? 

One of the air controllers steps over to him to report. “Sir, they’re coming in. They’ve taken a military transport to get through the weather.”

“Thanks,” Tony says and then frowns. How the hell did they pull that one off? Granted, Rhodes is a General now, but shit that’s some big ass favor to ask of the military. Then it dawns on him – this probably isn’t just a social visit. Sure, he thought they would be bringing the news with them, trying to get him back in the game, but this means business. He sighs. They need something – something that will mean tearing Tony away from his compound, away from taking care of his love. He can’t go, not now, not when his love is so desperately ill. 

Finally, he spots the transport coming it. The winds batter it and for an instant his heart is in his throat, but the pilot manages to get it under control and settle it on the tarmac of Tony’s private airfield. Whomever is at the choke is a god damned outstanding pilot. Tony watches as the Quin Jet settles. A bus races up to the jet as the ramp way descends. Tony leaves the window and walks over to the entrance of the small airport he owns. He owns everything on the island from the airport to the grocery store to the hospital (more of a clinic) to the compound. It’s all his and it all means fucking nothing without his love.

Just as he’s about to glower in the depths of his anger and frustration, Rhodes and Pepper walk through the door. Even with the shelter of an umbrella and the bus to protect them, they are still soaked to the bone. Pepper sees him immediately and rushes up to him, wet and dripping and clutches him in her arms.

“Damn it, Tony. It’s been too long.” She kisses him on the cheek and then moves away. She regards him and presses her lips together in a thin line. She’s still beautiful – still holding onto her youth. Especially because of Extremis. She’s one of the few that has taken Extremis. About ten years ago she had a fatal diagnosis. 

When he thinks of the moment Rhodes told him about Pepper’s condition – how there was no cure, that she would surely succumb to the cancer that ravaged her brain – chills steal up his spine and he shudders. If there was one person outside of his love who he could not lose in this world then it has to be Pepper. She has always been his stalwart friend, his companion, his solidity when he thought everything would fall down and break apart. 

“It’s terminal, Tony, there’s nothing we can do but make her as comfortable as possible,” Rhodey said as they sat at a café. Tony flew in from the island to meet Rhodey for a weekend. It was a rare occasion that Tony left his love on the island without his supervision, but Rhodey had sounded desperate and would not consider coming to the island.

“Terminal? Is that what the doctors are saying? Terminal?” Tony felt his voice crack and his limbs go numb and he wasn’t even sure he could breathe anymore. It couldn’t happen to Pepper, it would never happen to Pepper – not this. Not this insidious disease.

“She has about a few months. We’re going to spend it together. I thought maybe you could come up to the Dome, spend some time with her. Before it gets worst, before she can’t-. She would like that.” Rhodey’s hands were cupped together, pressed between his knees as if he might jitter apart from the bombardment from hell. 

It hit him then as Rhodey offered the Dome –that of course Pepper wouldn’t die, she couldn’t and he would never let that happen. It had been an easy choice. Tony couldn’t stand the idea of losing her, and it was Extremis to the rescue, even though she had forbade it. He couldn’t NOT do it. They still debate about it. It saved her and that’s all that matters.  
For him, for Tony. It had been the right thing to do and he would do it again in an instant without question if he had to do it all over again. He doesn’t have any guilt.

Except for his love.

He will always harbor guilt when it comes to thinking upon his love. 

“It’s been forever, hasn’t it?” he says and squeezes her hands. “God, you’re soaked.”

“What? Don’t I get a hug, a salute, anything?” Rhodey asks.

“Always lollipop, what you want? A good blowie? I could do a blowie right here, sweetcakes,” Tony says and the air traffic controller and bus driver both choke a little.

“Tony, not in front of the wife,” Rhodey says but he still slaps Tony on the back. He’s in civies and looks well. He hasn’t taken a dose of Extremis, even though as one of the top ranking in the military he’s more than qualified to have access to it. He’d told Tony no – long ago. It’s the principal of the thing, whatever that means.

“Well, we better get back to the compound anyhow. You’ll need to do all the passport business. This isn’t the mainland after all,” Tony says and ushers them to the wall cue where they can scan their passports and get check into the island. Movement from the mainland to other places is still strictly watched since Hydra continues to be a pest.

They finish their check in and then the bus driver guides them back to the vehicle. It’s a small bus but it’s still decked out with a bar and easy captain’s chairs with tables. Its capacity is only four passengers. They hurry to the bus. Trying to stay beneath the umbrella is impossible with the tortuous winds. Finally aboard, they get into their seats as the driver closes the doors and belts in. He asks everyone to do the same and they follow the request. No point in being stupid about it.

“I am assuming that this isn’t going to be just a social visit,” Tony says. He hates to start things out on the wrong foot but he similarly loathes the idea of waiting around for the other shoe to drop.

“The rest of the crew in for the holiday?” Pepper asks. She’s avoiding and that’s not good. Pepper never avoids. Never.

“No, the boys fly in tonight. They have to wait until the storm passes. Not everyone I know has a General to fly them around.”

Pepper giggles and accepts the drink that Rhodes hands her even though the bus driver scowls because he got up from his seat as they weave through the curved roads up to the compound. “The boys? You are as bad as Ava.”

“Well, three amigos was already taken,” Tony says. He waits for Rhodes to lock back into his seat. The sway and jerk of the bus puts a damper on their conversation but Tony can’t wait. “What’s the story?”

“Is Ava ready to come back to work? We could use a little Iron Woman or even Iron Man back on our side,” Rhodes says.

“See that sounds ominous to me,” Tony replies and then watches the mud and the splash of the road for a moment. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

“Tony,” Pepper says and stares down at her untouched drink. She plays with the lip, lining it with her finger, but then the bus jostles them and the liquid sloshes over the side. He grabs a paper napkin and Rhodes sighs.

“Are you two going to tell me what’s got you looking like you came for a funeral?” Inwardly he winces at the words – just the thought of what happened to his love the other day pounds like the unrelenting waves against the shore during the storm.

“Tony, can this wait?” Rhodes asks and he eyes his wife.

“No, it can’t. Is there something wrong with Extremis? Is it going wonky on you, Pepp? I can fix that, I promise.” How many other people is he going to make promises to? Promises he can’t keep, promises that wash away in the passages of time.

Pepper looks up then and reaches across the aisle of the bus and clasps his wrist. Her touch is tender but firm. “It’s not that. I’m fine.”

“Kind of fine,” Rhodes says. 

She glares at him but the bus jumps and they are all startled for a second. Tony’s not going to let them put him off any longer. “So what is it? What’s the bad news and why does Ava have to be involved?”

“She doesn’t, but it would be good to have Iron Man back,” Rhodes says. “I’m not flying War Machine anymore. It’s retired and Pep isn’t flying Rescue except under the more dire circumstances.” 

He studies both of them and then screws up his face, hands pressing against his eyes. “It’s Conor, son of a bitch. Isn’t it?”

Tony drops his hands and looks at Rhodes. They’ve been friends forever, before Tony got involved in the rebellion, before his abduction, before everything and every noble hope and dream. Rhodes knows how much Tony doesn’t want to deal with this crap anymore. That he’s focused on one problem and one solution – how to fix his love. It’s twenty-five years in the making, and Tony deserves to have the time to finally free his love, but shit like this keeps popping up.

“It’s worse.” 

 

“What’s worse?” All he wants to say is how can it possibly be worse? Conor has been a thorn since they brought him home from the Triskelion. It’s like he’s been fucking programmed to be evil – how can someone like Conor be so evil when he comes from his love.

“Conor’s in the Grains. He’s got what he calls the People’s Progress following him.”

“People’s Progress – what the hell is that supposed to be?” Conor is anything but progressive. “He’s a damned Hydra lover. How can he possibly have anyone following him?”

“It’s No Man’s Land, Tony. You know how it is there,” Rhodes says. “Plus Conor’s has the intel to stir the pot.”

“I’m not sure what that means?” Tony says and watches as Pepper shakes her head at Rhodes.

“Can we talk about this when we get to the compound?” she asks. It isn’t like there’s that much time – the island isn’t huge by anyone’s standards. But Tony can’t see pressing the issues just now and he agrees. At least he knows the lay of the land – Conor is the problem. Conor is always the fucking problem.

He only ever raised Conor and loved him because of the boy’s father. Yet Conor is a bad seed, off and wrong from the start. Bruce mentioned it early on, that they needed to do something about it. Maybe Tony ignored the warnings, but he had tried.

When the boy was only three years old, Tony sat with him in the Dome. He’d been working on the latest review of the implant, trying to tease out the issues between it and the serum. Conor sat on his lap with candy in his mouth and sticky fingers on his keypad. When the screens showed the schematic of the neural implant, Conor stood up, balancing on Tony’s thighs. He can still remember telling the little boy to get down but Conor didn’t listen. He only pointed to the blue light on the screen.

“Da.”

“Yes,” Tony said. “Your Da has one of those.” He didn’t really like to broach the subject of the neural net with the children. His main purpose in raising them was to protect them and give them the best life he could possibly imagine for them.

“Da,” he said. When he faced Tony he threw himself in his arms and hid his face along the hollow of his throat. “Not Da, you Pops.”

“Right. That’s right.”

He settled down on Tony’s lap again and said, “I don’t like Da.”

Tony’s heart clenched but he tried to freeze his reaction. Conor had only just turned three. They were still adjusting to life as a family. Plus his love had many bad days including seizures, catatonic states, and worse moments where he simply left them and Tony had to trace where the hell he went. There was one time he walked out into the frozen tundra around the Dome – just walked out and kept going. He’d nearly frozen to death. 

“Now why would you say that?”

Conor twisted his pouty little mouth and said. “Granddad said Da isn’t a person. He isn’t human.”

“We talked about this, Conor,” Tony said. “He wasn’t your granddad. He lied about that. The president did a lot of wrong things in his life. Making your Da a Designate was one of them. Owning people is wrong.”

“Not if they aren’t people,” Conor replied and shrugged his little shoulder as if his words weren’t daggers. “I want to go home.”

After that the conversation only degenerated into a test of wills, like it always had with Conor. Tony wipes the thoughts away and turns back to Pepper. 

“We’ll deal with it, we always do.”

Rhodes only presses his lips together in a fine line and grasps Pepper’s hand. They make a fine couple. He loves that his two closest friends ended up together. There’s something poetic there – Tony’s sure. He’s just not a poet to write the words to capture its beauty..

The bus bumps along the gravel road as they approach the compound. He peers out the rain streaked windows and checks to see that the electricity is still on – the lights are amber in the windows. He has an arc reactor fueling the entire estate. The gates open as the bus arrives and close as quickly. The whole of the compound is well secured with the highest technology, including his Iron Legion. He doesn’t trust the outside world; it’s never given him any reason to trust it.

As they approach the main house of the compound the lamps along the roadway light. The pavement shines in the rain. The bus heads toward the garage and then the driver parks. Tony hasn’t told them about his love yet, what happened. He doesn’t really know if he wants to tell them, but he knows he has to – this is supposed to be a celebration.

Why does it feel more like a funeral?

There’s that word again, and he squeezes his eyes shut trying to push away the gloom of his thoughts, but that only sequesters his consciousness into the void of his own self-loathing – something that has been on the upswing of late. He opens his eyes to find that Pepper’s watching him closely. Her mouth pinched, her eyes narrowed as if she might drill down into his head and find out what’s permanently scarred him – but she doesn’t have to do that. Everyone knows his scars they are plain and simple and Extremis could never save him from them. 

He climbs to his feet as the bus rumbles and shuts down; the driver nods to him briefly before scooping up an umbrella to walk them the few meters to the covered walkway. Tony gestures for Pepper and Rhodey to go first. Pepper weighs his offer for a moment but then silently agrees. The caution in her eyes tells him worlds he does not want to know. She heads off of the bus with Rhodes trailing behind her. It takes a moment before Tony moves forward, because just a simple movement, a step, means he needs to face his life. The rains are never going to wash away the stains of his life, of what he’s done, of what’s happened to his love. 

The winds whip across the walkway making it impossible to stay dry; the palm trees struggle against the gale force but don’t break. He wonders how much he can withstand, if he’s as strong as a tree against the storm. He’s becoming philosophical and that’s only a recipe for disaster. They get to the main house and Tony opens the door. The driver – Raul – follows them with the luggage and Tony thanks him, telling the man to take the rest of the week off and stuffing his hand full of cash. It feels empty and useless but Raul smiles and thanks him. His staff is always loyal – to a fault maybe. He’s not sure.

Once inside the house, all three of them shake out their clothes in the mud room. It’s an entrance way that they use routinely to clean off from beach play. There’s a place to hang up coats and another place for the little Steven’s toys which are laying in a heap in the corner of the room. A cabinet to the side holds towels and Tony retrieves a few for his friends.

“Weather should clear up by tomorrow,” Tony says. “We have a big barbeque planned. Steven is going to be so happy to see you both.”

“He’s doing well?” Pepper asks as she pats down her face and dries her hair. 

“Great. I think Ava likes being a mom. Sure wish we knew who the dad was,” Tony says as Pepper hands him the used towel. He stows it in the hamper near the cabinet.

Rhodes laughs at him. “You know you try that all the time, every time we see you. You’re always digging for information.”

“Well, it would be nice,” Tony says.

Pepper crosses her arms and says, “Does it really matter?”

Scratching at his temple, Tony replies, “Probably not.”

“See, you’re learning,” Pepper says and grabs his shoulder for a quick squeeze.

“Yeah, but what am I learning?” Tony snickers as they head up the few steps to the door into the back hallway near the kitchen. 

“To mind your own business,” Rhodey mutters and Tony only gives him a short growl in return. 

As soon as he enters the darkened hallway to the kitchen, he catches the sounds of Steven’s laughter and it somehow settles his worries, if only for a moment. Pepper turns around and looks at Tony, smiling. They round the corner into the kitchen and there’s Ava and Steven eating – well, Ava is at a stool eating while Steven is in his booster seat with smears of spaghetti all over his face. He looks like a goofball with the worms of pasta all in his blonde hair.

“Pops!” Ava says and laughs. She jumps down from the stool at the kitchen island counter and kisses his cheek. “Pepper and Jim.” She embraces both of them.

“Who calls him Jim, no one calls him Jim. He’s sweetcheeks,” Tony says and makes tickle fingers at Steven who only hoots at him and flings pasta wide.

“Great to see you again. We miss you around the Dome, you know,” Rhodey says and Tony wants to growl at him again. 

Ava smiles and returns, “Well, I’m getting there. Almost time to don the suit again.”

“Or never,” Tony adds. “We don’t really need to talk about this again, do we? Not now?”

“No, not now,” Pepper agrees and goes to unfasten Steven from the booster. He immediately dumps pasta on her and Ava apologizes. “Oh don’t worry.”

“You have white pants on, oh my God. Steven, bad boy.”

Tony only smirks and goes to the sink to get some paper towels and clean up the mess. 

“I’ll clean him up,” Ava says and takes Steven who is laughing all the time. Pepper hands him over and Ava disappears down the hallway to his room. “Be right back.”

Tony watches her go and for a fleeting moment wants to call her back, because now he has to face the questions.

“Where’s Steve?”

And there it is.

Clearing his throat, Tony answers Pepper, “He’s in the pod. He had a little incident. We had to hook him up and try to stabilize him again.”

She has a paper towel in her hand as she scrubs at the pasta sauce stains on her pant leg. “Is he okay?” When she looks up at him, she stops, drops the towel on the counter, and crosses over to him to hug him. “God, Tony, I am so sorry.”

“What?” Rhodey asks. Tony can’t voice anything yet and Rhodey only curses. “Damn it, Tony. Why didn’t you say something when we got in?”

Pepper releases him and Tony only hangs his head. “What can I say? Steve had a massive seizure. The damned implant imploded or something.” He runs a hand over his face and starts to pace. “You have your own worries. The world has moved on from the Designate problem. Everyone else in the world has moved on – there are no Designates anymore.”

Rhodey and Pepper share a look but then refocus on him. He hates when they hide things from him, but right now he just doesn’t care enough to inquire. He moves away from them; he needs space – physical space – between them. They pity him, he’s sure. They think he needs to give up on Steve. It wouldn’t be the first time. Sometimes he thinks that Ava is the only one on his side, but even she is teetering. He knows, though, that there are others, supporting what he’s doing here.

Pepper taps her lips as if she’s weighing her words before she begins. “So how bad is it?”

“I won’t know until I get him out of the pod,” Tony says and he tries to make it sound casual, that everything is going to be fine, but his head wants to explode along with the implant because he’s just so damned tired of it all. “I’ll check on him now, actually. Why don’t you two go to your room. You know where it is, right? Get yourselves comfortable. I’ll be right back.”

He doesn’t allow them time to answer or protest, because god damn it, he needs fucking time to be alone and to decide what the hell should happen next. He hurries away and ignores the hurt look on their faces. He’s been alone too much. He knows that, but right now he can’t be with them. He needs to check on his love. He hasn’t been down to the pod all day. 

The pod is situated in his main workshop, not because he wanted it there to hide it, but because he often needs to tweak it and it is just more practical to have it in the shop. The winds have died down a bit but it’s still raining like a son of a bitch so by the time he gets across the stone path, he’s soaked. He goes straight to the door and it opens with his hand and iris scan and quick access through Extremis. When he enters the lights come on automatically. The workshop is state of the art. Robotic manufacturing, work benches, computer consoles, and, tucked in the corner, the pod. It sits there like some kind of coffin in a vampire movie. It’s a horror that’s for certain, but it’s worse than that – it’s hopelessness. He goes to the console next to it, trying to forget the rapidity of his own heart, the way he sweats and the anxiety creeping up his scalp. 

While he digs into the data both through the central console and Extremis, he touches the pod and lightly strokes it. “Let’s see how-.”

“Sir.”

“Yes, J-man?”

“There have been several anomalies during the Captain’s recalibration.”

Tony twists his lips. That’s not a surprise – it seems these days there are more anomalies than there are standard routine calibrations. “Okay, pull them up. Let me look.”

The display appears around him like a cascade of blue and red lights. The red indicates the anomalies while the blue shows the neural network’s standardized functions. He moves the schematic of his love’s brain. The activity in red is nothing short of amazing. What can it be? He’s learned a little bit about neurology and the theory of the brain and consciousness. But this can’t be – it just cannot be.

“JARVIS overlay this with the ten previous scans.” 

The data is almost too much to collate, but using his link with Extremis, Tony sweeps away the nonsense, the outliers, and then spurious data only to focus on the center – the claustrum, if he recalls correctly. He taps that and then it expands. What he sees is that the electrical simulation from the neural implant is being disrupted. 

“JARVIS, give me some data on the claustrum and its neural connectivity to the implant.” He can barely get the words out of his mouth, because he can see the patterns over the last ten scans – and he bets he would have been able to see them over the last twenty, thirty, even hundred. It’s right there before him. 

As he watches a graph with dots and lines display something he thought might be impossible only days ago. “Okay, can you put the data on here for the last ten years? Just on the graph. I want to see the electrical stimulation from the neural net to the claustrum. Show me the fluctuations.”

“That is a considerable amount of data, sir. It may take a few minutes.”

“Please, go ahead.” He should go back up to his guests. He should find out the weather and when and if the boys are hopping over to the island. Instead, he rummages through the video files he has and watches the years filter by in aching moments that he can never recover regardless of how he hard works on the nanites, or the implant or the serum. 

He should surrender and just let his love go. It wouldn’t be a crime to let him out of his misery, his prison. But those are his thoughts, Tony’s thoughts, not what his love – what Steve wants. He cannot presume to make that decision for him – never. 

Some might think watching all the video might be a self-flagellation, a way to punish himself for his failure. Maybe it is. But he likes to watch for the fleeting moments when he thinks he might see Steve. He knows Steve is still there. With what happened on the beach, he thinks that is not just a possibility but a reality. He flicks through the early video when Ava and Conor were younger to when Ava left them and it was only Tony and his love. 

He watches one of the recordings. He sees himself sitting the living room. The sliding glass doors must be open because he can hear the ocean waves crashing against the distant shore. His love comes into the frame. It’s night and the world is silent except for its breathing through the ocean’s movement. His love comes to him and then gently, softly kneels at his feet.

Early on Tony had hated these moments and tried to stop his love from doing this submissive action. He’s not opposed to people having a lifestyle that supports a dominant submissive interaction. It isn’t for him, and it is especially not for him when it involves someone whose will has been taken away from him. But that night, he learned to do what needed to be done for his love.

He watches as the video feed shows him slowly reach out his hand to his love, lightly touch the head that’s perched in his lap, and then stroke it. His love’s eyes flitter closed and he rests in the video. How much was that from the core of who Steve is and how much was it the neural net providing a submissive action for a Designate? He has no idea. He’d tried to use the Designate web that he has installed at the compound to free his love, but that was counter intuitive to the base programming and caused all kinds of seizures for Steve. Tony reverted back to the basic Designate Web 2.0 and his love survived.

But never thrived. Not here. How could he ever thrive in his state?

“Sir?”

“Yes? Done?”

“I am retrieving files from the archives. It may take longer since the data storage is not up to date and I need to convert the information.”

Tony taps on the workbench and nods. “Okay, do it.”

“It may take longer, you may want to visit with your guests?” 

Always trying to save him from being a complete ass to his friends and family. “I’ll get there. How long will it take?”

“I am computing that it will take another half hour for the archived data to be included.”

He weighs whether or not he needs the data. “How much of the data is archived?”

“About two thirds.”

He whistles. That’s too much to discard. “Okay, do it. But alert me as soon as you’re done. I need to come back down here and look at this ASAP. You understand, JARVIS. Don’t dawdle.”

“I do not dawdle, sir.”

“You constructively obstruct, though.”

“As you say, sir.”

Why does his AI sound smug? JARVIS gets more and more advanced every year. Soon, Tony will need to fashion a body for the AI. He’s getting that independent. “Okay, I’ll go-.” He stops because going to see to his guests, his family, means he has to leave his love. He touches the pod and imagines his love can feel him through the metal, through his unconscious sleep.

“Be right back,” Tony says and strokes the pod once before he heads back to the main house. The rains have stopped but the thick clouds are hanging heavy over the ocean. He pauses only for a moment on the covered walkway, peering at the waters. He can see the ocean from here, between the two buildings. As he stands there with his hands in his pockets, the door to the house opens.

“Pops,” Ava says. She doesn’t have any shoes on; she’s wearing shorts and her hair up in a sloppy bun. “Da okay?”

“Yeah, I’m having JARVIS run a few tests. I gotta go back,” he says and points back to the workshop. Maybe he’ll just escape, forget about the celebration, forget that twenty-five fucking years have passed and he’s still sitting on his hands waiting for a miracle.

“Come on now. Pepper and Jim are hungry. I got Steven down for a nap. We have wine, the weather finally broke. Come on,” she says and reaches out her hand. There’s too much distance separating them and Tony thinks that’s how his life is now. Diffuse, separate, distilled away from everything and everyone. “Pops, did anyone ever tell you that you are morose?

“I’m not sure that one came up.” She smiles at him and there’s something so genuine, so beautifully hopeful about her that he always breaks down. He cannot help but smile back at her. “Okay, okay. You said wine?”

“Yes, come on. I even put on some kabobs.”

He chuckles she has loved kabobs since she was Steven’s age. “Shrimp?”

“Shrimp, beef, chicken, and some veggies. Come on.” She curls her fingers at him. He relents and follows her back into the house. 

When they walk into the kitchen both Rhodey and Pepper are hanging on the island bar, laughing and she’s touching his cheek. There’s something intimate and special about it. Tony considers her; they almost lost her but now she’s healthy, well, and young. Rhodey is aging, but he won’t take Extremis, even the scaled back version that Tony gave Pepper to save her life. Tony thinks he needs to have that conversation again.

“Tones, everything okay?” Rhodey asks.

“Yeah, just checking on the progress,” Tony says and leaves it at that. He knows they think he obsesses about his love’s state. He claps his hands and says to Ava, “I was promised wine.”

She smiles at him and reaches up past where he could comfortably stretch to pull down a large goblet from the upper shelf of a cupboard to pour him some wine. “Here you go.”

“Did Steven go down easy?”

“Yeah, he’s tuckered out. We played all morning-.”

“Did you do his colors? He’s behind knowing his colors.” Tony waits until she’s done pouring the wine before he grabs it off the counter. It’s one of those times he doesn’t want anyone handing anything to him. 

She only frowns fractionally, but jumps in to say, “You know he’s not that behind. He’s just a toddler.”

“I know, I just want him to have all the opportunities,” Tony says and then he glimpses it – just a brief exchange between Ava and Pepper. “What?”

Pepper waits a minute but Ava has dropped her glance downward to not meet his eyes so Pepper takes it upon herself to answer, “You do know he needs some other children to play with, right?”

“Some of the staff have kids. Happy and the nurse-.”

“Henry is nearly twelve, Pops. He needs kids his age,” Ava says. “And Happy’s girlfriend’s name is Stacey – really, Pops.”

Something turns over in the pit of his stomach as the realization hits. “You’re thinking of taking him away. You’re thinking of bringing him up to the Dome.”

“It’s a thriving community,” Ava says and her expression is earnest and beseeching all at once. “He needs others. He can’t live in isolation like this-.”

“He’s too little to be at the Dome. He’s a baby,” Tony says and he cannot believe how everything is unraveling so swiftly. He turns to Pepper. “Did you put this nonsense in her head?”

Ava huffs and slams her fist down on the stone countertop. “Stop it. He’s my child. I want to see him grow up, I want to be there for him. I can’t do that and be Iron Woman at the same time.”

Rhodes studies him and before Tony can respond says, “You know she’s right.”

“Did you come here just to do this? Just to break up my family? Some crappy celebration right? First Steve seizes and now this, thanks for that – thanks for the memories and good bye.” 

“Tony,” Pepper says and stretches her hand across to grasps him. “Please, we’re not trying to break up your family. You come, all of you. You, Ava, Steven.”

“And what about Steve? You didn’t even mention him,” Tony says and looks between the two of them. That’s when Rhodey back tracks and Tony can nearly hear the tires squeal as he does.

“Of course, Steve will come. Of course. Tony come on now-.”

“No, there’s something more to this and you’re not telling me. You don’t get it-.”

“I think they do get it,” Ava says and there’s something lurking in her tone, something hot and cold at the same time. “I think they get that you’re slowly disappearing, Pops.” Her eyes glitter and shine in the light. “This is consuming you-.”

“This? This is your Da, your father,” Tony says and he feels the rage – the rage and anger and denial and complete hatred of the world roll over him like the storm outside their windows. “He’s your father and I’m not giving up on him.”

“It’s been twenty-five years,” Rhodey says. “We’re only trying to look out for you, we only want what’s best. All you’ve done is what’s best for him.”

“For him?” Tony wipes at his face because any minute the unshed tears in Ava’s eyes are going to be joined by his own. They will be shed. They will stain his face. “I’ve done what’s best for everyone. For you, Ava, for Steven, for Steve. God, you people are heartless.”

Pepper stands up and straightens the sundress she’s changed into while he was gone. “That’s not nice, Tony. You know that’s not true. We’re trying to look out for you, to stop this madness.”

Madness, that’s what everyone thinks this is. A sickness. He glances at Rhodey, who can’t hold his gaze and shifts to bow his head. This isn’t a sickness, he wants to scream. This isn’t a madness. This is his life. This is his love. But none of them want to hear it; they think they are rescuing him from his self-destruction.

He places the wine glass on the counter and says, “So this is some kind of intervention? You planned this when you decided to come down for the holiday?”

Ava shakes her head and her expression crumples. “No, Pops, I just-. When Da had that seizure, did you even consider what it did to you? It’s bad enough I have to watch my one father walk around like an automaton, I don’t want to lose my other father to all the guilt and obsession to fix him.”

It always works. He knows Ava doesn’t consciously manipulate him, but her attachment to him is legendary. Ever since Conor beat her and then spent days torturing his Da – Ava latched onto Tony as if the world might end if he disappeared. “I’m not going to leave you, Ava.”

“Did you even see yourself? Do you know what you looked like when Da had that seizure, when he – when I picked him up from the beach?” Ava rasps out the words as if every one of them is a thorn in her throat. “You looked like you wanted to give up, like you wanted to go with him, like you didn’t care about surviving if Da didn’t. One day, one day soon, it’s going to all end, Pops, it’s going to all end and I’m going to lose both of you. I can’t handle that. Conor is gone, all I have is you and Steven. Please don’t make me do this alone.” Her voice betrays her, breaking at the end. She cups a hand over her mouth and races to escape.

She leaves the room then before he’s even able to pattern a reply. He tries to build one, to put the pieces together of a response. But it’s impossible, because if Tony’s anything, he’s always been a futurist and he knows, down in his bones, he knows what’s going to happen. It’s inevitable. 

Both Pepper and Rhodey are silent as he processes Ava’s words, but then Pepper approaches him. She wraps him in a hug and he places his head on her shoulder, because he’s not sure what the hell he’s going to do – how he’s going to proceed. She moves away but grips his shoulders. “Give yourself time, Tony, to process. What she’s asking isn’t easy.”

“She’s going to take Steven away,” Tony whispers and he remembers those long days when it was only his love here. Sure he had the staff, sure he had his work for the revived world, but he also only had his love. He cringes – because he shouldn’t think that way, he shouldn’t think about how awful and lonely and frustrating it can become with just his love here as company.

The years after Ava left to become part of the Avengers – the defenders of the new world order, he tried to show a happy face, to pretend he was waving good bye and wouldn’t suffer the after effects of empty nest syndrome. But it ended up being so much worse than that. An empty nest filled with memories of his failure. 

He recalls the blank conversations, one sided and painful. “You know we used to bicker a little, not a lot, not with that thing in your head. But we would debate and you were sassy. So sassy,” Tony said one afternoon as he worked in his shop and his love, the Designate stood patiently by waiting for his next command.

Tony hadn’t known when he started it, the long daily monologue cataloguing their lives together. He only had the barest minimum of their lives before Freedom Day – the day the Triskelion fell. It was only a few months, not even. But he would elaborate in detail to his love – everything he could remember and maybe he went a little too far, pretended a little too much. But he kept up the spiel every day.

“At first of course, you were shaky with your training, plus you didn’t know me for shit,” Tony said. “Stane had the State train you and from what we’ve gathered you were a fucking pain in the ass during your training.” He’d laugh then, always, because he would imagine Stane and his frustration. That was always the best. But then there were the times he yearned for something more than just his constant soliloquies. 

One morning he had been particularly struck by the separation of time and space between them. But his love had come up to him with a cup of coffee in hand and offered it to him. Tony had only nodded to the table – it was one of those moments he couldn’t accept anything from his love – because it hurt too damned much to realize that his love was only this automaton. 

His love placed the coffee mug on the table but did not move off to a corner as he always had, awaiting instruction. Eventually Tony turned to him and asked, “What is it?”

“You seem,” the Designate started. He paused as if awaiting internal instruction. Tony swore he could heard the web he designed to stabilize the neural net ping and clatter inside his love’s brain. “You seem pensive.”

It was an odd moment. Even though Tony turned off any possibility of punishment from the web, there was nothing he could do about the base coding, the fact that internally the person who had gone through the training – Steve Rogers – would always psychologically recognize the neural net as a threat. That always put his love at a disadvantage and he nearly never broke the training and the protocols that were the basic programming of the neural implant. 

He stared out the window and didn’t know how to answer. What response had been appropriate? He couldn’t fathom, because he had been standing there wishing for a way out of the hell he’d condemned himself. The lonely existence filled with guilt and longing that could never be fulfilled. 

He doesn’t like to think of what happened next. He ended up on a drunken splurge. His love had taken care of him, even when Tony retaliated, even when Tony threw things, even when Tony said horrible, repugnant things at him. His love took all of the abuse, because he’d been god damned programmed and trained – trained with pain and humiliation to take it all. 

He can’t take that kind of emptiness again. When Ava came back to the island and announced at six months along that she was pregnant and would stay on the island for the rest of her pregnancy – Tony went through the roof with joy. Ava – his star, his delight, his shining hope. She spent hours with him designing and learning and laughing. When the baby came – when Steven opened his eyes to the world everything changed for Tony. He’d found a purpose again. 

Who would have thought a baby would change the world for Tony Stark?

“She’s taking him away.”

“She doesn’t want to miss his life,” Pepper says as Tony stares at the red wine in his glass. He knows Pepper’s right, that Ava has every single argument in the book on her side, but it means that Tony goes back to the hell again. Living a shadowed life with a man that wears the face of his one-time lover.

“Come back to the Dome. We need you there anyhow,” Rhodes says. “It’s getting dicey with Conor on the loose and the Deadlands – well that’s not going over well.”

It should pique his interest what’s happened on the West Coast of America, the Deadlands. All those years ago around the time Tony was born, the Soviets and the United States had a limited nuclear exchange – it transformed the world – not only due to the massive destruction and radiation but also because it opened an opportunity for a young charismatic man named Alexander Pierce to rise to the top. A desperate world sought help and he provided both help and hope, though it manifested itself as a Hydra run State that overwhelmed much of the world.

“I suppose you want me to ask about the Deadlands, because right now I am not in the fucking mood to hear about Conor,” Tony says. 

Rhodey cocks an eyebrow and says, “Well, it would be nice. We need help, Tony, and you’re it. You know that Loki ended up getting away after Freedom Day, right?”

“Yeah, but he didn’t cause much havoc.”

“Not here,” Pepper says. “But in the other realms and it looks like he might have never left Earth, that he’s used it as a base of operation for something. Either him or someone else.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Really, this is how you’re going to lure me back with aliens and mysterious places in the Deadlands?”

Before Pepper can reply, JARVIS pipes in. “Sir, the analyses are complete.”

“Yeah?” Tony says and slips off the bar stool.

Pepper catches his arm before he’s able to leave the kitchen. “Tony, we only just got here. Don’t disappear again.”

He should feel guilty, but what’s a grain of sand on a whole heaping mountain of guilt? “I have work to do.” He starts away not letting the nagging hole of grief stop him, but as he heads toward the door, both Rhodey and Pepper follow him. “Yes?” He halts and waits for them to go back to the kitchen before he opens the door to the walkway.

“Thought we’d come too, see what you’re up to,” Pepper says and she smiles. “Plus I’d like to find out how Steve is doing myself.”

He wants to snarl at her. This celebration has turned from bad to worse. He should just kick them off his island and go back into hermit mode. He could build and build and build and get lost in it. No one would need to see him again. He could go mad with the internal monologue turned external for only an automaton to hear.

Pepper places a hand on his wrist. “Let us come, Tony. We’ll be quiet.”

He considers her hand, considers Ava gone – lost in her own anger and fears. He only licks his lips and nods. “Come on. It’ll be boring for you.”

“Since when is anything Tony Stark does boring?” Rhodey asks and wraps an arm around each one of them. “Come on, we’re off to see the wizard.”

“You do know that the wizard was just an old fake behind the curtain, right?” Tony replies as they step outside. 

“Now why would we think that about you, Tones?” Rhodes says and pecks him on the cheek. “Thanks to Extremis you still have your looks.”

“Okay that’s enough of that, sweetcakes,” Tony says and for just an instant he feels a little bit more like himself, all those years ago before the fall and when he was under cover as Iron Man. “Come on, then I’ll show you what I’ve been working on.”

The night is clearing, the storm clouds are farther out to sea and, overhead, the stars glitter in the dark sky. The smell of the storm still taints the air, but he can feel the clean breeze sweeping through the causeway. Lights strung along the poles and roof of the walkway twinkle on. It would be enchanting if Tony thought about it, but most of the time he’s deep in thought along the way, preparing for the next step or the next chance to change his love’s fate. Pepper appreciates the pretty lights and smiles at the occasional lantern glowing in the night. When they approach the workshop, Tony disengages from the trio and unlocks the building. JARVIS greets all of them as they enter.

Tony goes straight to the pod, his hand is on it before he realizes it. It’s a ritual of sorts. When he’s worried, when he’s stressed, when he’s lonely, he always touches it if it holds his love. He lays his hand on it as if in greeting or blessing. 

“He’s in there now?” Pepper asks.

“Yeah, yeah, he had seizure. Pretty significant one. Not even really a seizure since most of the time that doesn’t entail bleeding from your eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and neural implant.”

“Damn it, Tony,” Rhodey comments, his hands on his hips. “That’s rough. I take it you were able to pull him out of it?”

“Kind of,” Tony says. “I have a doctor that’s familiar with the case on call. He came by and checked on Steve. Once I got him stabilized, the doctor said he might have some pretty significant brain damage. But I am not seeing that on the brain scans.” He turns to the console, pulls up the screens of the scans, and then tosses them to project in the air. 

Pepper gazes above her, her lips slightly parted. “What are we looking at?”

“A real time scan of Steve’s brain.” 

“Real time?” She shifts her focus to the pod. “Right now?”

“Yeah, right now,” Tony says. “Through the probe, I can scan his brain and see any damage. If we overlay it with previous scans there are differences but not the kind I would think would be there if we’re seeing neurological damage.”

“You’re an expert in neurology now?” Rhodey says and it’s not sarcastic but more appreciative.

“Not really, I just know enough to be dangerous,” Tony replies with a wink toward Rhodey. “If you see here.” He points to the blue and red lights in the scan. “The blue indicates the normal neural net functions.”

“And the red?”

“Anomalies that I’ve been graphing. It’s steadily increasing,” Tony says and then spins the image around to focus on the claustrum. He points to a coronal section of the cerebrum. “See this here.”

“It’s all in red,” Pepper says and squints as she focuses. He recognizes Pepper’s thoughtful pinched expression any day of the week. “What is that section?”

“It’s the claustrum. It’s just a sheet of neurons, tiny neurons a millimeter thick. It’s everything though because it’s the superhighway of consciousness, of cognition. If this part of the brain goes, it’s impossible to bring back consciousness.”

“Okay,” Pepper says and Rhodey is quiet.

“See this scan,” Tony says and sweeps the current one away to show the one from this afternoon. “It’s red as well but what’s significant is this. The neural net, the core of it – continually interfaces with the claustrum, stimulating it and causing Steve’s consciousness to shut down. When stimulation is removed from directly impacting on the claustrum and allowing it to function as the conduit for all of our perceptions, our senses, our consciousness – well we have just that consciousness, or in this case Steve’s consciousness.”

“So it’s red. What does that mean?”

“JARVIS, do you have the data I asked for?” Tony says.

Immediately dropping into place next to him is a graphical representation of the stimulation of the claustrum against the growing anomalies. It’s mapped out as well. JARVIS states, “I have normalized the data since some of it had been taken on less advanced equipment or when Captain Rogers was in an agitated state.”

“But it looks like what I think it does, doesn’t it, JARVIS.”

“Yes, sir, it does indeed.”

Rhodey raises his hand as does Pepper – almost like they are in class. He waves them off. “It means that the neural net is no longer constantly stimulating the clautrum. It’s not interfering anymore with Steve’s center for consciousness. Its interference has steadily decreased over the years until now-.”

Rhodes and Pepper bookend the holographic projection. “He’s there?”

Tony smiles at Pepper. “Yeah, I think he is.”

Tony looks at the pod and then lightly brushes a hand down its smooth surface. “The last seizure was a strong one. He’s recovering and I think he might be there. I think Steve might be coming home to me. He actually called me Tony after his last seizure. He never does that as Designate.”

“When do you-when can you find out?” Rhodey says and he sees the same excitement in his friend’s eyes that he feels throbbing in his chest.

“JARVIS?”

“Sir, I would suggest that you wake up the Captain now. I have detected a high amount of independent neural processing.”

“He’s waking up on his own?” Tony says and rushes back to the console board. He hits the smooth surface, bringing up the newest data. The readings spike across the screens. “Damn, damn.”

“Yes, sir, and he’s quite confused.”

“What is it?” Pepper asks just as Rhodey walks over to the side of the pod.

“I think-.”

He doesn’t finish his sentence because he’s interrupted by a loud bang from the inside of the pod. It startles and they all jerk in response. Rhodey swears under his breath and then says, “How do you open this thing up?”

The pod is closed for good reason. He designed a closed pod for his love because of Conor. It was safer this way for him to be secure in the pod with closed, locked doors on it. There had been too many instances when Tony had walked in on Conor sitting staring at his father hooked up to the probe for recalibration. Once Conor sat there, eating, and staring. It brought shivers to Tony because it brought images of a predator stalking his prey.

“Let me,” Tony says and it only takes a quick check and then he sends the sequence via Extremis link to open the pod just as another bang issues from inside. The pod moves and gears whine as it is maneuvered to a horizontal position. The locks release and then doors slide open. Tony is at the side of the pod. 

His love’s eyes open, stark and terrified. Blood leaks from his nose and as Tony reaches into the pod to disengage the probe, he feels the same from the port. “Steve? Steve? Can you hear me?”

His love raises a hand, tentative, shaking, and fisted. 

“Steve?”

Pepper stands at Tony’s side, her hand on his shoulder. Before he responds, Steve begins to pant, his breath comes in short panic gasps. His shuddering under Tony’s touch and his eyes are roaming around the room as if he’s never seen the workshop before now. 

“JARVIS, give me an update?”

“Captain Rogers vital signs are stressed but within normal parameters. The neural net is not functioning correctly, but I am not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.” 

“Steve?” Pepper says and her hand joins Tony’s on Steve’s shoulder.

“How is the implant not working?”

“The core connection to the brain has been interrupted at the base level. In other words, sir, it is off line.”

“Off line,” Tony says and then reaches up to touch Steve’s face. “Steve, do you know me? Can you look at me, please?” Steve’s eyes shoot back to Tony. There’s panic, fear, and something else – something shifting over him like shadows chasing him. “Come on, Steve, I’m right here. You need to focus on me. Can you hear me? Listen to my voice. Listen to me.”

His eyes snap to Tony then and the shadows recede – not completely disappearing but lurking toward the back, toward the corners of his consciousness. His body quakes and then he grabs onto Tony’s hand. 

“T-Tony?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony says and he’s nearly crying like he did on the beach. He’s falling apart just like Ava said he did, just like everyone warned him. But it’s worth it – it’s worth the millions of moments before this one – because he owns this moment. He owns it. Even as he feels the tears burn his eyes, he owns it.

Before he can say another word, because he can ask anything – if Steve understands what happened to him, if Steve knows where he is, if Steve remembers anything from the last twenty five years, if Steve still loves him, Steve tremors under him. The entire pod rattles as he shivers.

“Tony, Tony.” The voice calls out to him but he cannot place it, but then Rhodey grips him and yanks at his arm to get his attention. “Tony, he’s going into shock, we need to get him out of here and warm him up. He’s going into shock.”

It makes no sense and he stumbles in his processing to figure out what his friend is warning him about – but then it’s Pepper that’s holding him. “Tony, help us get him out of the pod. He needs to get inside, to the house.”

“Wh-what?” 

Rhodey grips his face in his hands. “We need to get him inside. Whatever happened, the whole thing has thrown him into shock. Let’s get him inside.” 

He looks at Rhodey and all of the words collapse in on themselves as they begin to make sense. Thankfully, JARVIS is not jarred or paralyzed by emotion. “Sir, the armor at your command?”

“Armor?” Tony asks and then he realizes that JARVIS is right. “Yes, yes, the armor.”

He hasn’t been inside of an Iron Man armor for years but he does have a suit – ready for use just in case. The back wall of the workshop opens to reveal a shining beautiful blue and gold set of suits – those are all Iron Maiden, but toward the right in a small corner the Iron Man suit sits. As soon as the opening reveals the suit, it dissembles and flies to Tony at his command through Extremis. He’s kept most of his commands to JARVIS and his computer system vocal as a precaution (his own fears and his love’s fears) but he can order most anything on the compound through non-vocal commands. 

The suit collapses around him, wrapping him in its metal alloy sheath. It feels like he’s home, like it’s welcoming him. “JARVIS?”

“At your service, sir.”

“Disconnect Steve and let’s get him inside. Warm blankets for his bed, also make sure that we have some first aid supplies. Call the local doctor and get Bruce on the line as well.”

The pod disengages and Tony steps to the side. Both Pepper and Rhodey move back to give him room. He slips his arms under Steve who quakes at the sight, at everything around him. Tony retracts the faceplate and helmet. “It’s okay, Steve. It’s me. Tony, you remember me?”

Like a newborn, Steve tries to hold onto Tony, but his arms fall away and he drops his head to the metal shoulder. It doesn’t matter – against all odds, Steve is there – Steve is aware – and Steve is moving of his own volition. With Pepper and Rhodey leading the way, opening doors, Tony brings Steve inside the main house. As he walks through the living room to his master bedroom, Ava meets him in the hallway – her eyes are red and puffy.

“Pops?” She looks from Steve to him, her eyes hysterical with terror.

“It’s okay. He woke up. He’s going to be okay.” 

Tony doesn’t know if he’s lying, if he’s pretending that everything will be fine now that Steve somehow beat the thing in his head after twenty-five years, but he doesn’t care. Right now, today, at this hour with his closest family around him he ignores the storms outside, and takes joy in the man in his arms. He hopes, he knows, the storm within may well have past. For now, this moment, he can banish the storms threatening outside. For now, this moment he owns the joy of being with his love, with Steve.

“Steve.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. This story - unlike the previous one - will be entirely from Tony's POV. So I hope you will hang on for it, because this one is going to blow everything out of the water as far as Tony's life is concerned.....


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank thegraytigress again for all of the help she gives me with discussing the story and the beta edit. I changed a few things and added stuff after she reviewed it, so any issues are my own!

Reaching across the center island in the kitchen of his secluded villa, Pepper holds his hand to steady him. The night settles across the storm ravaged compound, and there’s something strong and quiet about it. He squeezes her hand because he needs to go back to Steve; he can’t take a moment to himself. Pepper stops him from leaving the kitchen.

“He’s resting,” she says. “The doctor is on her way. You need a moment to yourself.”

“He needs to know I’m there when he wakes up. I don’t want him to be alone,” Tony says and every nerve fiber, every muscle cell in his body screams for action. The tension quakes through him even as he tries to stay calm. When Tony had carried Steve back to his bedroom, the bedroom he so achingly wanted to share with Steve all these long years, his love had been as weak as a newborn kitten. 

Tony laid him on the wide king sized bed with its warm sea colors of the bedspread that picked up the startlingly alert blue eyes of his love. Steve had shivered in Tony’s arms until they wrapped him in the blankets and he kept looking around the room in some kind of strange fugue. It reminded Tony of wonderment laid over fear and confusion. Anytime Tony tried to ask him any questions or call his name, Steve flinched and recoiled as if something painful slammed into him. 

He did not look like the man who’d once walked in the Grains without doubt. He did not look like the man who gave himself up to the State to save the world. This man, his love – Steve – reflected a kind of scattered light as if the facets of his memories were shattered and broken. A jewel smashed but still as brilliant in its parts as when it was whole. He grabbed for Tony when he tried to move away. It took some doing to get Steve to allow him to stand and have the armor open and fold away. 

After Tony sat on the bed, speaking to Steve. Steve drifted in minutes, his eyes falling shut but his hand grasping for Tony’s as the night fell around them. Once he’d finally succumbed to a real sleep, Tony disengaged and then set to work. Both Pepper and Ava tried to drag him away, but he needed data. He needed to know this was the beginning, not a false start, not a fake hope. 

He hated the idea of doing anything that might trigger a negative or pain response, but at the same time, if he didn’t collect the data he might never be able to help Steve. So with Ava’s help and a little hope, Tony plugged his handheld interface into Steve’s port. 

Only to find the neural net and the entire nanite system in stasis. He could not access the net; he could not achieve any pairing with it or connection in any way. Ava asked, “Pops, what’s happening? Why isn’t the implant working?”

Tony could only shake his head and his vision funneled. He couldn’t feel the tablet in his hands as he stared at the steadily horizontal line on the graph for neural net activity. His hands shook with something like fear but very close to hope.

Flatline. That’s all it was – flatline.

The neural net flatlined.

“Tony, come on, you need to let it be for a while. Rest. Have a glass of wine, something,” Pepper is saying as she clasps his hand again.

Tony snaps out of his recollections, out of the endless stream of data and figures that Extremis feeds him on Steve. “It’s a flatline, Pepper. A flatline.”

“Yes,” she says and pats his hand. “I know. Ava told James and me. The flatline of the neural net– is it a good thing?”

Tony jerks his hand away from her and scrubs his fingers through his hair. Suddenly a glass of wine seems like an excellent idea. He doesn’t know where anyone else other than Steve and Pepper are at this moment, but he needs to sit down and make his nerves stop jumping like kernels of popcorn in hot oil. But he feels like he’s in hot oil, over the fire, ready to explode. 

“Where’s the wine?” He starts searching through the cupboards as if he hasn’t lived here for over a decade. 

Pepper walks to his side, places her hands on his shoulders and stops him. “Sit. I will get you wine. Sit.”

He meets her gaze. He needs to hold on; he needs an anchor and he reaches up and grasps her arms. She doesn’t let go, because Pepper has always been like that, always been at his side, protecting him, assisting him, helping him throughout the years. Even though she chastised him for using Extremis to save her when she received the terminal diagnosis, he would do it again in a blink of an eye. Did that make him selfish? It just damn well might, but he needed her. He couldn’t do this without her. 

There are no words shared between them, just a simple gaze and Tony deflates. He falls into her and she cradles his head against her shoulder. He wants to breakdown, let all the anxiety and stress from the years behind him go, but he can’t. Not yet. There may be more to come; his dream of having Steve with him again might be pulled away. What if, when Steve wakes up, he’s not there? What if he’s the Designate again? What if it was only momentary lapse and his hope is gone? So he holds onto the dam that brooks the flood and wraps his arms around Pepper, finding the strength he needs to build into a new day and hope a little more.

“I’m here,” Pepper whispers as if she can read his doubts and worries. She kisses the crown his head and then rests her chin there only to tilt her head and place her cheek against him. “Let’s have some wine. Get something to eat.”

“Okay,” he says but his voice sounds deeply affected and painfully near the edge of breaking. 

She’s smart though, smarter in many ways than he is. She shifts position and guides him back to the stool at the counter island, but then decides against it to direct him to the living room. “Sit. I’ll get the wine.”

“Okay,” he says again and his voice only sounds a tiny bit better than it did. He plops down on the plush sofa where so many times before Steve knelt at his feet, awaiting his next command. Every moment, of every day Tony strived to free Steve in so many ways. He gave him choices, never tried to order, always tried to offer a certain freedom. But the designate core wasn’t designed like that and no matter how many protocols for choice and freedom Tony designed into the Designate Web, the implant always overrode them. It became a kind of battle of wills. 

Every little push Tony succeeded at ended only with the implant causing damage to Steve’s brain. Even with the pain punishment disabled and the dampeners he tried to install, he failed time and time again. He managed to save Pepper from a terminal cancer diagnosis, but could not rescue his love from the insidious thing surgically implanted in his brain.

“Come on, take it,” Pepper says and she stands over him with the large glass of wine offered to him.

He does, because it is Pepper. She settles next to him on the sofa, elbow notched on the back and leaning into her hand, one leg folded under her. “This is good news, right? The flatline is the activity of the implant, right?”

He nods because he cannot voice the words – they might become real again and take away his anxiety and fears. He needs those fears; clawing onto them helps him survive. 

“Steve is going to wake up and things are going to be good, right?”

He sips the wine and shakes his head. “I don’t know, Pepper. I honestly don’t know.”

“You need to stop trying to fix everything in the world, Tony. You are a mechanic, a genius, an engineer extraordinaire, but you need to accept that sometimes you have to stop.”

“I can’t, I just-.” How can he possibly explain it to her?

She doesn’t give him the opportunity. Instead she reaches out and clasps her hand on his after she places her glass on the coffee table. “Listen, answer me a question, will you?”

“If I can?”

“Okay, why did you save me?”

He sighs and looks away. He can’t answer that question. They’ve already been through this so many times. He cups his hand against his mouth as if to stop the words from coming out, as if that might help him. But instead, he allows a muffled answer. “I couldn’t lose you. You’re my rock and I can’t do this without you.”

“You do it every day without me, Tony. You’re stronger than you think.”

“You give me more credit than I deserve,” Tony says and then throws his head back on the cushions. “Just a few weeks ago, I thought about packing up. You know, I think I would have done it if Ava hadn’t been here recovering. It’s so damn isolating and the walls, god, the walls are closing in sometimes. And him-.” Tony throws his hand up and then just drops it with a thud on the cushion. 

“You’re tired, frustrated; you want to move on. But you don’t want to hope that this is it, right?” Pepper asks and she waits for him to meet her gaze. He does, because he always does what Pepper needs him to do – and maybe a little bit more.

“Of course, yes. What do I do if I walk back in there and he wakes up again as him, as the Designate? As someone I can’t be with?”

Pepper shakes her head. “No, Tony, that’s not it. Be truthful. Answer the real fear, the real question.”

“What?”

She inhales, holds it as if she’s bracing herself, and then releases her breath. “You’re afraid. For all your arrogance and showmanship, you’re afraid. You won’t let me die because you couldn’t face that scenario. Now you are about to face a different scenario, one you cannot stop or control.”

“It’s a good thing. You dying was not, that’s totally different.” He swigs the wine and it tastes bitter to his tongue.

“No, you’re afraid that when Steve wakes up, he’s going to be free of the neural net, that he’s going to be a different person, and that you’re going to lose him.” She leans over and picks up her glass. “This is something you can’t change and you’re terrified.”

“What are you saying? That I want Steve to stay like – like that?”

Pepper looks at him sadly. “Not really, but it’s been your reality for so long-.”

He jumps up from his seat and starts to pace around the living room. “A reality I wanted to change. Didn’t you hear me? I thought about it.”

“How many times? Once, a thousand, but you didn’t do it.” 

“Don’t say that I want Steve to stay – like that – don’t say that,” Tony says and he’s grappling inside, falling away from the cliff face with no true hand hold. 

She gets up and stops him from pacing, but he doesn’t want anything to do with that. He goes to the large window looking out at the deck and the sands and the beautiful vast darkness of the ocean. 

“He’s coming back to you, and you don’t know if all the dreams you made up for him are reality or just hopes and wishes. You can be afraid of the future, Tony, but sometimes, just sometimes, you can’t change it.”

“I don’t want to change it,” he says. He doesn’t look at her, he stuffs his hands deep in his pockets. “Not this time.”

“Then let’s remember that he needs your support now more than ever.”

He knows this down to the marrow of his bones. He agrees but he realizes he needs to have time to process what has happened. He’s not stupid, far from it, but his life has been eaten by the Designate known as his love. The idea of finding some freedom from that – freedom to think about something else, to tinker and discover and invent for something other than releasing Steve from his imposed prison – may terrify him more than he actually wants to admit. What would he do with this life if it isn’t _this_.

As if she reads his mind, Pepper says, “You’ll introduce him to the new world. There’s a lot to do, Tony. You’ve secluded yourself, cut yourself off from the world for too long.”

He turns from the darkness, the black ocean beyond the window to face her. “You’re going to challenge me again, aren’t you?”

She laughs; it is light and sweet. “Now why would I do that?”

Before he quizzes her on what she’s intending to finagle her way about, Ava walks into the room from the hallway to the bedrooms. Her eyes are a little puffy as if she’s still crying on and off, but her shoulders are straight and her dark long hair braided and tidy as if she’s trying to show that she’s ready for anything. Tony can only think of one thing though.

“Is he?”

“Both Da and Steven are sleeping,” Ava says. “I think we should probably eat. The boys should be here soon.”

She’s trying so hard and Tony would commend her any other time, but he’s broken a little inside and he doesn’t want to hope at the same time he wants someone – anyone – to tell him that he can hope. “I should check on him-.” Tony starts toward the hallway, but Ava grabs his arm and shakes her head.

“He’s sleeping. Let him be and get something to eat. You need your strength.” She clears her throat and adds, “Please, Pops, we need to sit down and eat. Once the boys are here, there’s something that we need to discuss.”

“You leaving? Taking Steven?” Tony wants to scream but he keeps his voice level.

“No, something worse,” Ava says and glances to Pepper only to look away. “Let’s eat.”

Tony watches the two of them, examines how they both go to the kitchen that’s only steps away from the living room in the open concept design of the house. It’s a great room with an island separating the working kitchen from the living room. The tiered island has dark granite embedded with what looks like chips of red glass. He’s always loved the look of it, striking and bold. The cherry wood of the cupboards plays off the red in the stone. 

Ava and Pepper bring out the dishes of food, quietly talking as they work. He should insist on finding out the bombshell they both obviously know and have been waiting to drop on his head during this little celebration. Instead, he walks to the bedroom – his bedroom- and stands at the doorway, not going in. Steve sleeps and the small device attached to his neural implant blinks with its warning that the core is not functioning, that the nanites are in stasis. Tony stands there and waits for everything to change, for his world to shift and grow ugly. He cannot hope.

He glances over his shoulder. The bombshell is going to detonate and its splatter will rob him of the hope and happiness he deserves; it will take away the life Steve is supposed to be able to recapture now. It will change everything again. It seems like his life is filled with a series of doorways – that always open up to the tiger. 

Next to the kitchen and adjacent to the living room is the dining area that usually opens up to the beach when the weather permits. The sliding doors are closed and the windows are shuttered. As they finish fixing the dinner, Tony silently joins them. He helps but keeps his mouth closed as he observes their unspoken words. 

Once the table is set, Ava goes brings out the salads and the kabobs. “Steven will be sorry he missed it. He loves these.” She places the platter on the table. There’s enough to feed an army and he checks with Pepper and she smiles.

“The boys have arrived.” 

He knows. Extremis pinged him as well. In seconds, the back door opens and the ruckus of ‘the boys’ clatters into the house. He can hear the hooting of Barnes as he and Sam bang against the walls and Clint reprimands them. If they are the boys, then Clint as the eldest tries to keep them in line. It isn’t easy but it is a job he’s taken seriously all the years they’ve been friends – while they weren’t fast friends they have been inseparable as battle buddies since the beginning. 

Even as Clint found a wife, he invited them into his life and they continued to revolve around one another all these years. Both Sam and Bucky have the benefit of Extremis to keep them young and fit because of their Designate status. While they have aged to a degree, they are younger than Clint by at least a decade due to the side effects of Extremis and its ability to heal. Both Bucky and Sam have devoted their lives to the cause of clearing out all of what Hydra left behind; Clint has also built a life outside of the comings and goings of battle and politics. He splits his time between his farm house that had once been used by the resistance as a hidden base and the Dome. With a wife and young children, Clint balances out trying to keep both sets of kids in line. 

Clint rolls into the kitchen first, a smile on his face and the gray at his temples more prominent than the last time Tony saw him. Life has lined his face but he’s all the more handsome for it. “Clint,” Tony says and gets away from Pepper. If only for a moment, he can forget the press of responsibility and her questions.

Clint grasps his hand and claps his other hand around their joined hands. “Great to see you, Tony. When are you coming back? I need Iron Man with these two nut buckets.”

“Don’t you start now,” Tony says and grabs Clint to bring him into a hug. He’s never treated Clint quite so gregariously, but he’s deflecting from the current conversation and he hears a little huff from Pepper because she recognizes it instantly.

“Hey now,” Sam says as he enters the kitchen. “Did we implant something in his brain while I was away?” 

Tony pushes Clint away and realizes he’s genuinely happy to see the three amigos. When Bucky enters into the kitchen it feels like the storm that rammed into the island took a U-turn and blasts them again. His eyes are feral; his hair hangs in his eyes. “Where is he?”

Tony holds up his hands and says, “He’s resting. You’re gonna need to dial it down a degree.”

“Resting. What does that mean?” There have been times in the last twenty five years that Tony and Bucky have danced around blows and have even come to the point of blows. 

“He had a severe seizure is what it means. Even if the neural net was functioning correctly, it would still mean he needs to rest. Having your brain fried does that to you,” Tony says and Clint places a hand on both of their shoulders as Rhodes backs up against the counter.

“Let’s all take it down a notch,” Clint says and the tension in Bucky visibly relaxes. He glances at Sam who only puts his hands out and lightly gestures for Bucky let it go. Bucky shifts his weight and then moves to stand next to Sam.

“Can we see him?” Sam asks.

It’s Ava who answers as she claps her hands together. “Let’s eat first. Come on everyone.” 

She ushers them over to the table. It’s large enough for the whole crew and Tony takes his seat at the head of the table. The bowls of salads and the platters of kabobs go around the table. Rhodes and Pepper are especially good at warming the conversation and keeping it going. To the side of the main table is a chair – a chair that his love, Steve, would sit at during meals. It had been difficult for Tony to deal with, but Steve wanted to be at his service and not sit at the table. Though Tony would insist on it sometimes. There were times to keep the peace and to decrease the pain from the neural net Steve suffered because of his training protocols that were devils to modify. Even with Tony’s tinkering, the neural net evaded and caused long term issues with Steve. So, he would allow Steve to sit to the side, only eating when his betters finished.

The chair is empty now and Tony looks beyond the table to the far off hallway and yearns to go to see Steve. A hand on his wrist stops him. It’s Ava, always sitting to his right.

“Eat, Pops. We’ll go see him after.”

He nods and digs in. He can’t really stomach too much but he makes a show of it for her. Always for her. As dinner progresses, the conversation turns to the dealings of the world governments. 

After the fall of the State, chaos reared its ugly head. The world fractured and humans showed their worst sides as always. Nationalism and racism and all kinds of ethnic issues played their roles. Nationalism be damned. They couldn’t afford to raise flags anymore. Sometimes he’s glad that he hid away on the island and ignored most of the clatter and cacophony of world politics.

Within a decade of the State falling, a regulated, almost normal world emerged with a vast global economy that stabilized. There were still smaller states and rogue elements but most of the world sat loosely knit together under a Federation Union with individual nation states. It didn’t always function coherently but it got the job done. There had been movements on occasion to re-establish old state lines – but that had exploded in everyone’s face once the whole of Europe, Africa, and what had been the United States broke out in skirmishes that nearly expanded into a world war. 

Luckily statesmen like Coulson and Pepper wove the tattered strips together into the Federation and they got on with the duty of living. While it wasn’t the best solution, it had survived until present day. The nation states under the Federated Union thrived while break away countries tended to disintegrate with the chaos. The standalone nations and the Rogue States that still existed caused instability and growing waves of discontentment. 

“It’s not going to hold. the Federated Union can’t,” Clint says as he crosses his arms and pushes back his chair. The feast is over and they all have cups of steaming coffee in front of them. 

“It’s held for nearly fifteen years, Clint,” Rhodey replies. “I think you are seeing something the rest of us just don’t.”

“The rise of Nationalism is always a threat,” Pepper says. “It has been since the fall of the State.”

“And that’s where you have to be a little more observant,” Sam chimes in. He’s been silent during much of the meal, his sight line straying to the hallway and the bedrooms many times. “Clint keeps eyes on things we don’t normally pay attention to.”

“So, what’s the magical place you’ve been seeing fairies and unicorns?” Rhodey asks.

“Not unicorns, that’s for sure. More like orcas.” Clint says. “Well, I can tell you the Rogue States are well funded.”

“That’s nothing new,” Tony says. “Unfortunately, elements like Hammer and Killian didn’t go down with the State. They’re still out there and stirring up trouble.”

“Plus Killian has his own version of Extremis – and he’s selling it to the top bidder. Extremis and access to it continue to be an economic issue.” Clint says. “You might not think it’s something to worry about but it is. Plus Killian’s version is unstable and often times turns people into fireballs.”

“That’s something to worry about,” Pepper says. “Do we know where he’s at?”

Clint shakes his head. “Not Killian. He’s been fairly absent for years now. No one knows where he calls home. But he does bankroll quite a bit of the Rogue elements.”

“It’s funny, you know,” Tony says. “Back in the day, the Rogue States were a haven-.”

“And now they are a threat,” Ava says. “That’s where Conor is, right, Pops?”

“Not really,” Bucky says and it’s the first time he’s spoken during the whole affair. Everyone around the table quiets. “We know he’s hanging out at the Grains.”

“Which is one of the Rogue States,” Ava says.

“They’ve petitioned to join the Federation,” Clint says and sucks in a breath. 

“How the hell can that happen? They can’t possibly get admittance. They have human rights issues. God they have animal rights issues,” Tony says and he feels like there are nails digging into his throat. “They’ve advocated for a caste system-.”

“Maybe if I reached out to him-.” Ava starts and the fear boils up in Tony so hard and so fast he thinks that his blood might burst from his arteries and splatter all over the dinner table.

“No, no, no. Have you forgotten what kind of sadistic asshole he is?” Tony pounds the table. “I won’t have you even going near him, not even in the Iron Maiden armor.”

Ava sighs and shifts in her seat. “Pops, I haven’t forgotten. No one has. But he has Da’s DNA, same as me. He should be – at least – half good?”

“No, he’s evil to the core. I don’t know what cesspool of genetic material he came from, but that fucker is not Steve’s progeny. No, I refuse to believe that.”

“Tony, now you’re being irrational,” Pepper says and reaches over to pat his hand. He shrinks away from her.

“I’m not. Have we ever considered that maybe the State screwed around with his DNA? They could have. Has anyone ever looked into the databases?” Tony asks. He should have, but part of him never wanted to know. He didn’t want to uncover that there might be evil lurking somewhere in Steve’s genetic code. What is the code for evil in nucleotide base pairs? How does it work within the biochemical configuration of the double helix, the coding and non-coding regions, the different RNAs, the spliceosomes and messengers? How does it all work to split a good man into an evil one?

“Isn’t that a little off the subject?” Sam asks. “The point is that Conor is heading up the movement in the Grains and he’s got a lot of support. He’s legitimized his philosophies.”

“And by philosophies you mean his crazy ass ideas,” Clint says. He does air quotes as he explains, “His movement, the People’s Progress, has spread outside the Grains. We’re tracking pockets all over North America.”

“What’s he got that people are drawn to?” Ava asks. She’s rubbing at her right arm, the arm that Conor sliced when he tortured her and their father.

Bucky shifts in his seat and grumbles something. With a short gesture Sam tries to stifle his discontentment but Tony’s drawn to it. Even as he focuses on Bucky, Tony notes that both Pepper and Rhodey give each other furtive looks and then stare at their cooling coffee. “What the hell is going on?” he asks.

“We might as well break out the liquor because we need to tell him sometime,” Clint comments and Pepper hisses at him in disapproval. “Well, we can’t keep it a secret forever. Even out here in the middle of the sea, he’s going to find out.”

“Find out what?” Tony flips between being aggravated and annoyed.

Ava perks up and watches the different actors at the table as if she’s the little girl again, observing adults and trying to make sense of their enigmatic actions and words. He agrees with her and places a hand over hers. Tony says, “We’d like to know what the hell is going on.”

Bucky inhales and then exhales with a whistle. “Okay, then how about I start. That little shit is trying to stir up more trouble than anyone figured. The one thing he got from Steve is a good strategic brain because he’s pulling out all the stops on this one. You got a vid-link around here?” Abruptly, he stands up, the chair scraping at the tiled floor in the dining area.

“Yeah, yeah, over in the living room.”

The whole crew follows suit, standing and abandoning their coffee for the comfort of the living room. Tony goes to the console that’s set up to blend in with the rest of the ocean and beach décor. He hits a white painted panel near a sea shell and the wall converts to the computer interface. “JARVIS?”

“Yes, sir?”

Tony gestures for one of them to take the lead. Bucky eyes him but accepts. “JARVIS can you patch me through to the Dome?”

“Security code?”

It takes a few minutes as Bucky runs through the iris scans and the DNA as well as proof of life confirmations. His link to Extremis actually speeds the protocols along. Eventually, he gets where he wants to go and the link happens to be strong. He taps out a few commands as if he was born to it, and it surprises Tony – both Steve and Bucky are men out of time. Bucky’s adaptation to the new world had been hard fought for and longer than Steve’s. While Bucky spent years as the Primary Designate for President Alexander Pierce, Steve had been frozen. The Hydra run State had found Steve, thawed him, implanted the neural net with the nanites, and then spent over two years conditioning and training Steve. Part of Steve’s training had been with Bucky – or the Winter Soldier. 

It wasn’t pleasant.

As the screen descends from the ceiling, Bucky says, “This is a pretty crappy feed, but it’s what’s been traveling over the Open links.”

Tony crosses his arms over his chest. Just waiting to find out what the hell the fucker, Conor, has been up to sets his heart into a crazy rhythm. He could call on Extremis to quiet it, to relieve the stress, but he doesn’t. Maybe it’s because he wants to view this unaltered. 

The screen shows Conor speaking to a crowd. Tony identifies the place as one of the Grains. It isn’t one of the upscale old grain elevators that have been updated to marvels of engineering and architecture to house the many bars and lounges of the No Man’s Land areas. No, this is one of the grain elevators that squatters have taken over and use as a place to live. The dirt and grime, human tragedy on display for everyone to see. Conor picked this for a reason – Tony sighs. The man is brilliant when it comes to making a point.

“- came to show you what you could have but can’t.” The video feed is grainy and shaky as if someone surreptitiously filmed the event. Tony leans forward to get a good view of Conor. He looks ill – sickly. A quick glance to Ava and he confirms she sees it too. Conor is as much Steve’s son as she is his daughter. DNA testing by Bruce showed that Ava had functional super soldier serum, though somewhat diluted in its strength. 

“What the hell?” Tony says.

Of the two – Ava and Conor – it is Conor who physically takes after Steve. His blonde hair and blue eyes are near carbon copies of his father. But where Steve is broad chested and strong, Conor isn’t – at all. It makes no sense. Bruce confirmed ages ago that Conor had the serum, at least in the some diluted fashion. How altered and changed his DNA might be is another story. 

“He looks like Steve did before the serum,” Bucky comments. 

Ava steps up the screen; she partially blocks his view. Her arms curl around her, hugging close to her body. “He looks sick.” Peering over her shoulder, Ava gazes at him. Her eyes troubled. “He looks so sick, Pops.” He goes to her, wraps an arm around her shoulders and kisses her temple. He has no words to comfort her. Only she would love a monster. She’s so much better than him; she still holds such feelings for her brother.  
“How could this happen? How did the serum fail?” Ava asks. Ava queries Tony, but only with her eyes. She isn’t asking about herself – she’s fearful for her child. What would it mean for Steven if the serum failed him? Surely he would be protected considering he’s second generation. He needs to find out in order to reassure her. He gives her a silent nod. 

Bucky answers, “We have theories. Banner is working on it. But listen – you need to listen closely to this.” He rewinds the feed and then runs the video again.

This time Tony pays attention to the whole of the recording. He notes the run down appearance of the audience, the broken shell of a room they are gathered in, but the people surrounding Conor – his guards - are well dressed, well outfitted with artillery. Meanwhile, Conor wears the simple outfit of torn jeans, a t-shirt, and an ill-fitting jacket. His hair is too long, but his face still resembles Steve’s. While he’s angular and pale, he’s tall and still domineering in the room. 

“I grew up in the Dome; I saw how the other half lives,” Conor says. “I grew up in the fantasy, that we could live a free life without the State to take care of us. I grew up healthy and free. But then I saw, I saw the reality.”

Behind Conor on the curved wall of the room, an image appears. At first it is still, only a photograph. From the angle, it’s hard to make out, but Ava jitters next to him and he concentrates to try and figure out what’s happening – what’s going on. But then Conor answers his questions.

“My Da, see him? Do you see my father?”

It was a photo of Steve – as a Designate. But it’s not a photo – it’s a recording – a digital capture of their family together. Ava is there as is Conor. Off to the side Tony stands. They’re young, much younger. It’s when they first moved to the island. 

“My father is a Designate. And I want you to understand that I use the present tense on purpose.”

The crowd shuffles and whispers as he speaks.

“My father, Steve Rogers, is the Primary Designate for Tony Stark – one of the most powerful men in the Federation. He controls Extremis. He controls the future.” He laughs. “Dear Tony Stark likes to call himself a Futurist, but tell me how much of a Futurist can he be when he clings to the past. He keeps my father as a slave to his whims, as a Designate.”

A roar of disapproval rumbles through the crowd. Tony estimates the number of people in the crowd that he can see is near one hundred. There may be more; there’s no telling how many are gathered off camera. 

“We all thought there weren’t any more Designates, that freedom meant everyone was free, but does it? Does it really? You all know what happened to all the other Designates of the State, right?”

A murmur goes through the crowd. Both Bucky and Sam shift and glance at one another. They’ve both seen it before, Tony assumes. What could be worse than the fact Conor just indicted Tony as a slave owner?

“Extremis. They were freed from their chains through a working version of Extremis. Now all of them, all of the Designates who used to be beneath you, who used to kiss your feet, and work the menial jobs, are essentially immortal. And what do you have? What has the freedom from the State given you? Those that were Designates are better than you now, are like the gods.”

“God damn it, what is his angle? What’s the purpose of that?” Tony says and throws his hands up. He wants to turn it off but Ava’s transfixed. 

“Today, as part of the People’s Progress, we will institute a new vision, a new hope, a new future. We are the humans, the future. The only way the future is safe is to ban all modified humans. A modified human isn’t a human being. They aren’t like us. They aren’t anything like us. If we let them, the Designates infected with Extremis will be your rulers-.”

Tony strides across the room and hits the panel; the screen goes black and he says, “JARVIS, retract.”

“We’re not finished,” Clint says.

“Oh we are, we are very finished.” Ava tries to intercede, but when he said he’s done, he’s not joking – far from it. “That shit is trying to cause a fucking rebellion and he’s putting every former Designate in the crosshairs.”

“Yeah, we kind of get that,” Rhodey says. “There’s more and I think you should hear it.”

He wants to put his hands on his ears and scream lalala from the top of his lungs. This is not what he needs right now. With all that’s happened in the last forty-eight hours, he feels like his stress level ratchets up exponentially. For the first time in years, his brain goes to the armor, to the suit and to escape. Before he can stop it, Extremis answers him and he feels the tug of an answer. 

“Pops?” Ava says because with the serum running through her veins her advances hearing can pick up the sound of the workshop and the armor. He cringes and tries to shut it down. “JARVIS abort.”

“Sir? Should I abort?”

“What’s going on?” Sam asks and Pepper puts her hand to her mouth.

“Yes, yes, abort, abort.”

It’s not fast enough to stop the retraction of part of the roof and the chest plate zooming into the room to fasten around Tony. A silence drops over everyone as Tony stands there with the armor chest plate glinting in the living room. The roof slides back into place. The recessed lights in the ceiling spotlights him and he’s more than a little embarrassed by the whole incident. He mutters, “Retract.”

The chest plate folds up and drops to the floor. He looks at it like it might be a poisonous snake. “Sorry about that display, folks. I usually act like that when confronted by a murderous shithead, though, so it shouldn’t be a surprise.”

“All the more reason you need to get back to the Dome,” Rhodey says.

Everyone is standing like they’re ready to flee – and Tony feels a little like that himself. He stares at the neatly folded chest plate at his feet and then at where the transparent screen retracted into the ceiling. How many times has he settles on the floor with Steven, his little chubby face and sparkling blue eyes like a beacon to who Steve used to be so long ago. How many times has he sat right here and called down the screen so they could watch ancient Tom and Jerry cartoons and laugh at the idiocy? Why does that have to disappear now? Why does he have to watch a maniac ruin it all? Why does he always have to protect his family from the threats within it and outside of it?

He picks up the chest plate and says, “I can protect my family here.”

“Pops,” Ava says and moves a step toward him, but he does need to flee now. He needs to get out and find some distance from the whole situation. He’s never been a man to completely disregard the responsibilities of life. Sure, in his youth he tried to drown the reality around him in alcohol, drugs, and random sex, but he’s been at the forefront, leading the charge to a better world. Doesn’t he deserve some happiness in his retirement?

Ava is speaking as he’s mourning what’s about to happen. “I have to go. You have to come with us. Conor knows where we live.”

“He can’t get here. He doesn’t even look like he has the resources-.”

“There’s evidence that he’s part of the underground ring with Killian and the faulty Extremis,” Clint says as he sidles onto the arm of a cushioned chair. 

“What the ever living fuck? So, he’s spouting about how Extremis is the evil to end all evils and he’s also selling it on the streets?” Tony says and feels a vibration under his skin, like his nerves firing too fast. He quells the call of Extremis again. 

“That’s part of the plan, we figure,” Rhodey says. “He’s getting people to follow him by adding to their fears. Killian sells the faulty Extremis that everyone wants.”

“Because of hey, immortality,” Sam says with roll of his eyes. They all know it isn’t the key to immortality. Everyone ages, even someone with Extremis. It’s just slower.

“He puts it out on the streets, people blow up. Conor says that it’s the Federation selling the faulty stuff-.”

Tony puts up his hands. “I don’t think I want to hear anymore.”

“But you need to come to the Dome with us,” Ava says and he sees the plea in her eyes. Just as he’s about to answer, the giggle of a child’s voice comes over JARVIS’ monitor. “He’s awake. We woke him up.” She starts toward the bedrooms.

JARVIS stops her, “Ms. Ava, Steven is in Sir’s bedroom.”

“Damn it,” Tony says and pushes past everyone to get to the hallway. He still has Steve hooked up to the mobile device checking and assessing the neural net. He doesn’t want the little guy to mess around with it. He knows Steven will be good, but he doesn’t know how Steve will act if he wakes up. There’s too many variables. “JARVIS, tell Steven to stay away from Steve.”

“That would be too late, sir.”

“Shit.” 

At this point, everyone rushes toward the bedroom with Tony in the lead and Ava on his right. He jogs up the few stairs to the master suite and slides open the doors, hurries through the vestibule area, and into the grand bedroom where he finds Steven sitting on the bed with his hand on a very awake, very confused looking Steve.

“Steve,” Tony says at the same time that Ava says, “Steven.”

Steve narrows his eyes at her as if he’s trying to get her into focus, but then the boy sitting near his chest jumps up and startles him. He jerks in response and scans the room as people file into it. 

Ava calls to her son, “Steven, come. Leave Da alone. He’s not feeling well.”

Steve mouths the word, Da, but doesn’t give voice to it. He slides up, trying to sit in the bed but the drag of the wires connected to the back of his head prevents him. Hesitating, he lifts his hand to the back of his head to explore the implant. “What?” His voice rasps at the air. 

“It’s okay, love, I can get that out,” Tony says and leans in – only Steve pulls away from him, his eyes leery and frightened.

“Hey, buddy, let him do it,” Bucky says. He’s crowded toward the back of the room and shoulders his way to the front. “Stevie.”

The fear settles a degree when Steve’s gaze lands on Bucky. “Bucky?”

“Just let him do what needs to be done, okay?”

He blinks his eyes a few times and then relaxes as Tony approaches. Tony’s not sure what’s going on, but he thinks there might be some access issues with memory and recall. It would make a certain amount of sense. “Okay, just let me disconnect.” He slips his hand under Steve’s head. Steve turns into the pillow, allowing Tony a better view of the port. “It looks clean, healing pretty well. Let me just get this-.” He does a final reading before completely disconnecting. “JARVIS, upload the information from the Designate web. Full screen of all data. Get me comparisons and measurements of the last few hours.”

“Yes, sir. I will compile the data. Would you like evaluation of consciousness?”

“Yes, we’ll do memory tests when Steve feels better, okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

Steve screws up his face as he tries to sit up. Tony chucks the mobile stabilizer onto the nightstand and then helps him into a sitting position. He grabs more pillows and tucks them behind Steve’s back. “Are you okay? Do you need anything?”

He eyes Tony and then his eyes drift back to Bucky, lingering on the metal arm. “You died.”

“Yeah, well that happens,” Bucky says and then shrugs. “So did you, if you want to know.”

“Okay,” Steve says and puts a hand over his eyes as his other hand goes back to exploring the thing in his head. “What happened to me? Did I die and someone made me into a robot?” There are goosebumps up and down his bare arms since he is only in a A shirt. 

Bucky laughs and Sam raises an eyebrow at him. “No, it’s a little more complicated than that.”

He rubs at his face and surveys the people encircled around the bed. He brings his hands away from the thing implanted in his skull and fists them as if he’s trying to stifle the urge to lash out. “Bucky, what’s going on? Who are all you people, and where am I? Bucky?” He attempts to move out of the bed, but his limbs fail him and he collapses back onto the pillows.

Ava whispers, “Da.”

Steve snaps his head in her direction and squints his eyes. “Da?” He looks to Bucky as if for an explanation.

“Okay, okay,” Tony says and taps his lip. “Come on, people. This isn’t a peep show. Why don’t we give Steve some space? Everyone out except for you. You get to stay.” He points to Bucky. Even though he’d rather have the time to himself with Steve, he has to allow the man to stay especially if he’s the only one that Steve recalls. Even admitting that small fact to himself hurts like a dagger to his chest. 

Pepper herds them out and takes Ava’s hand as she helps her son to the door. “It’ll be okay. Pops will figure it out.”

Ava only looks over her shoulder at Steve and then glances at Tony for reassurance once again. How many times over the years has she leaned on him, depended on him? Now the dynamic shifts with Steve’s transformation, and Tony doesn’t want to admit how terrified he is. “Go, sweetie. I promise I will figure it out.”

She nods and then escorts the rest of their extended family to the living room, leaving only Bucky and Tony with Steve. Bucky gives a small chuckle and settles down on the bed. His purple t-shirt pulled tight over the metal arm that Steve keeps glancing at with furrowed brows. Tony hangs back, arms hugging himself, slightly frightened of what he might find after all these years.

“You look like you used to when you’d come out of one of those fevered fits you’d have. Remember your ma would make you that tea and chicken broth. Make you drink both.”

At the recollection, some of the tension gathered in Steve’s shoulders eases. Steve pinches the bridge of his nose and then rubs at the back of his head, exploring the port again. He looks up at Bucky and says, “Yeah, yeah, she’d always sit there and watch me drink the whole thing because of that one time I dumped it out the window onto Mister O’Callaghan’s head.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says with a snort. “I’d forgotten about that.”

“Boy, Ma never let me forget that one,” Steve says and then his eyes fall on Tony and there’s a moment of recognition and then something else passes over his expression. Is it longing or pain – Tony’s not sure. His gaze returns to Bucky, and the comfort he finds there hurts too much, but Tony stands his ground. 

“Bucky, come on, what is this? What’s going on? Buck, I don’t get it. You were dead, you fell of the tr-.” He stops and then shakes his head. “That’s not the end of it, is it?” He reaches out and touches Bucky’s metal arm. His hand trembles. “Why am I so weak? What happened? The train, it isn’t. It’s not the end?”

Bucky stays still and says, “No, Steve, it isn’t. What’s the last thing you remember?”

He puts his hand to his forehead, fingering it like he’s playing a piano trying to recall the notes. He grimaces and then regards both of them, Tony standing near the side of the bed but behind Bucky. It looks like the act of accessing his memories pains him.

“If it hurts, don’t try,” Tony says.

“I just,” Steve says and swallows, frowning as if he tasted something bitter. “It feels more like a dream or a nightmare. I- everything is kind of mixed up. Confused. You’re Tony, right?”

Exhaling a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, Tony grips his hands together and says, “Yes, yes. I am. I’m Tony. What else?” He tries not to hang all of his hopes on that single question. 

Bucky holds up his metal hand and says, “Give him some time there, cowboy. He’s just been through a lot.”

Of course the fact that Barnes is right doesn’t stop Tony from resenting him. “I just-.” He stops. “Okay. What is the last thing you remember? Let’s go back to that, if you can?”

“Getting warm,” Steve says with his head tilted back, his eyes closed. His hands are opening and closing. His skin prickled with goosebumps and all Tony wants to do is hold him and comfort him. “I remember getting warm, after it was so cold for so long.”

Tony gasps in air but tries to muffle his reaction with fist to his mouth. This is not going to go well if Steve’s last strong memory is before the implant.

“Then.” Steve lowers his head and cradles his face in his hands. “There’s pain, in my skull, horrible pain. It gets worse, and they want me to – they want me to-.” He hisses and opens his eyes. There are tears and his voice sounds ruined like he’s screamed for days and days. “They put this in my head.” He touches the implant as he studies them. “They put this in my head and then they-.” He opens his mouth and looks at Bucky. “Then you-.”

Bucky jerks as if he might bolt, but that’s the last thing Steve needs. Tony puts a hand on Barnes’ shoulder to force him to stay put. Bucky says, “Shit, Stevie. You gotta know, you gotta know I wouldn’t have done it if I’d had a choice. I was-.”

“He had an implant that controlled his actions, too. The thing in your head when it’s not disabled is used to control your actions,” Tony says and manhandles Barnes to get him to turn his head as he flips up Bucky’s hair to reveal the old port. He knows that telling Steve this isn’t going to make the memories of what Bucky did to him during his training go away, but maybe it will buffer the blow. “Whatever they made him do, it wasn’t his choice.”

“Who?” Steve looks between them. The tears – he can no longer hide so he wipes them violently off his face. “Who did this to me? Who did this to us?”

Barnes considers Tony before conceding to him. Tony answers, “Hydra.”

“Hy-Hydra? They did win the war?” Steve says and he grabs at the blankets.

“Sir, Captain Rogers’ heart rate has accelerated to dangerous levels for his current condition.”

Steve freaks at the sound of JARVIS’ voice. “What the – who’s that?”

Tony holds up his hand and steps closer to Steve. All he wants to do his hold him, touch him, but he dares not try, not until Steve’s more settled, more aware of his surroundings. He still looks like a babe lost and alone. “That’s my artificial intelligence or AI that helps around here. Do you remember him?”

Steve shakes his head. “Only vague- I don’t know. I remember the idea of JARVIS?”

“That’s good,” Tony says. “Now, you remember your tra-.”

“Did we lose the war?” Steve asks.

“No,” Tony says. “In fact, the allies won the war, but unfortunately that wasn’t the end of Hydra. Hydra infiltrated the governments of the world, all over the world. They managed to cause a limited nuclear exchange between the US and the Soviet Union that brought devastation to both countries.”

“Nuclear exchange? What doe-.”

“They had big bombs that went boom,” Bucky says and glowers at Tony. “Can we bring it to his understanding? He’s not stupid but he doesn’t remember all this shit.”

Tony bites back his words if only to calm Steve who’s getting more and more agitated. “Okay, so big bombs went boom. After that,” he says with a glare at Bucky. “The world kind of went a little crazy and a guy named Alexander Pierce-.”

“Pierce,” Steve says and he physically flinches, curling inward on himself, protecting his vital and vulnerable mid-section His eyes are screwed shut and he quakes. Bucky reaches out and clasps Steve’s hand. 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. The son of a bitch is dead now,” Bucky says.

Steve braces himself like he’s about to go out into a fierce storm. He murmurs more to himself than to them, “He did - things. He did terrible things.” 

“Yes,” Tony says. “You remember that?” The idea that Steve remembers the horror of Pierce, how he tortured, raped, and nearly drawn and quartered Steve riles Tony, but he freezes his reaction. He needs to keep it calm, quiet, and soothing for Steve. “You’re safe now. Very safe. Bucky’s right, Pierce is dead and most of Hydra with him. You helped save the world again.”

“I remember some but spotty.” Steve licks at his lips, as he uncurls a bit. “How long has it been? It’s been a long time, right? I get that feeling and from the looks of this place, I think I’m right. A long time?”

“Yeah, since you went into the ice, the State and the fall of Hydra, all of it - almost a hundred years.” Tony waits for him to digest it and then asks, “Are you going to be all right.”

Steve glances over the large master bedroom, his eyes falling on certain objects in the room, photographs, personal items, the shield hanging on the wall. In a distracted kind of way he says, “Yeah, yeah, I had a date.”

Bucky laughs. “Finally, the guy finally gets a date and he downs a plane to get out of it.”

“That’s not funny,” Steve says but Tony can see the glint in his eyes. He’s playing with Bucky. 

“Well, the good news is, pal, that you actually had more than a date for quite a while before all this shit happened,” Bucky adds and then thumbs over to Tony. “Meet your boyfriend.”

“Tony?” Steve asks and furrows his brows again. His eyes flick back and forth as he lowers his gaze as if he’s processing everything their telling him, as if he’s trying to recall long hidden memories. “Is that true?”

Grabbing his arms in a self-hug, Tony nods his head several times. “Yeah, yeah, we were kind of an item. I don’t know how much you remember, but yeah, before the fall of the government Hydra put into place. Yeah we were-.”

“Like some kind of great love story. It’s ageless and they’re going to make movies about it,” Bucky says.

Tony slaps at him. “Stop it. You’re making him uncomfortable.” 

Steve scowls at the two of them and says, “I’m not sure I believe either one of you. Nearly a hundred years? That would make me an old man. What the hell are you trying to pull? Who are you really?”

“Listen, Stevie, we ain’t kidding you. I’m really Bucky and that’s Tony Stark, yeah Stark. Like Howard Stark’s baby boy. It’s been a long ass time and you have been either frozen or controlled by that thing in your head.” Bucky opens his hands in a kind of surrender. “We’re in the future, I told you once in an alley, we were going to the future, didn’t I?”

Steve surveys the room once again with his one hand on the implant at the back of his head. When his gaze falls on Tony, he says, “Yeah, you did, but I don’t think I imagined it quite the way it turned out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! poor Tony - right? This is going to change things for him, isn't it? Stay tuned.
> 
> Tell me what you think, I'm really interested in how people feel about this sequel!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank thegraytigress for her tireless help on this story. It has been a great revelation to have someone to bounce ideas around with and to figure out hard plot points! Writing has always been a solitary pursuit, but not with thegraytigress along to help out and to cheer me on! Thank you.
> 
> So the story is going to start really moving along after this chapter. I hope you will stick around and see what's up for Tony, Steve, Ava, Conor, and --- yes, Bucky........

CHAPTER 4

The large QuinJet sits on the island's tarmac; the engines roar to life as the ramp closes. The rumble of the engines and the groan of the fuselage reverberate through the cabin as the jet begins to take off. It’s been nearly a week since Steve woke up and it feels to Tony like a day. He oscillates between feeling numb and wanting to explode with the rush of emotions. During that time, Steve had grown more aware, stronger, though with episodes of confusion and exasperation. Bucky was right when he’d said to Tony that Steve is anything but a patient person. It turned out that they didn’t have the time, they needed to travel back to civilization again, away from the isolation of the island.

Tony sits in the co-pilot seat next to Clint as he works the controls. His eyes, sharp as ever, flick back and forth from the world outside to the controls. Tony turns from his pilot to the world outside - his island, his home, his sanctuary, and his prison for all these many years. Every fiber of his being protests against leaving the safety of his isolated compound but at the same time a small part of his brain rejoices. The thought of getting back to it, back to life, thrills that tiny part yet terrifies his conscious brain as well. He swallows down the fear racing through his heart, but nothing helps decrease the rapidity of its beating. He cannot parse his feelings and sitting up in the cockpit actually hides him from confronting them for longer.

As Clint lifts the jet into the air, controlling the take off and flying up to a cruising altitude, Tony watches his world drop away. He scans the beautiful emerald seas around the islands, the cays, and the keys. The loss opening in his chest robs him of that settled calm he's so used to and has taken for granted all these years. But the horizon beckons and Clint turns the jet toward the mainland, leaving the seas behind them. The shadow flirts across the windscreen, dark and bright battling for dominance but then they point westward and the light winks out.

The light in those blue eyes had been his one goal for so long. Tony peers over his shoulder to see Steve belted into a chair along with the rest of his family. Ava and Steven sit close to him but are not the next chair over. Bucky has that privilege. All the new and all the old information for a hundred years can be overwhelming, and while Steve has borne it well, there have been times coming to grips with everything has become a battle.

This isn’t what Tony wanted or how it was supposed to be. He was supposed to fix Steve years ago, not get him back through some mysterious hardware glitch or whatever the hell it is. Of course one of the things that had to be performed was a diagnostic scan of the neural net and the nanites to verify their status. Steve hadn’t wanted to do it, but he was convinced. Tony had watched Steve when he climbed into the pod. Every part of him radiated revulsion while goosebumps rose to telegraph how much the simple action made Steve’s skin crawl. 

Tony had asked, "Are you sure you can do this? We can try later?" All he wanted to do in that moment has been to gather Steve in his arms and comfort him. Yet how could he do that when he felt as if he was standing on the opposite side of a chasm.

"I can do it. Bucky said you needed to get more data to see if this thing in my head is really dead." He eased himself into the headrest of the pod and Tony climbed up the side.

"I'm going to plug the probe in now. It might hurt a little. I'm not sure. It always did when you had Rescission." He waited until Steve nodded for permission to touch him. The probe went in without incident and then Tony waited a few moments. "Everything okay?"

Steve cracked a smile. "Just peachy. I woke up and they tell me a 100 years have passed. I've been a robot slave for nearly a quarter of that time. I have two kids, a grandson, and apparently a lover - a male lover at that. I'm great, just wonderful. Top. of. The. World." He'd punctuated each of the last four words and grit his teeth afterward. "But, heck, how are you?"

Tony had tried to hide the feeling of rejection and the pain he felt at the words. What Steve said felt like ice encapsulating his heart. He wished it would be more like daggers, but it wasn't. It was so far from that heated hurt. It was a hurt that cast him aside. He didn't expect Steve to say anything or even try and console him. But he must have glimpsed a bit of Tony's heart break. 

"Hey I didn't mean." Steve stopped and stared up into the middle distance. "I didn't mean anything by it. It's just a lot to take in, you know."

He did and he didn't. "You don't remember anything?"

"Hmm, not really like that," Steve had said. "It's more like a dream." He chuckled without the sound of mirth. "More like a nightmare I suppose. I keep thinking that this is a dream, you know. Like I might wake up back in my bunk in the forties. But they tell me it’s been nearly a hundred years. Remembering what happened. I remember more and more of it, but it doesn't really solidify until I talk it out."

Tony did not want to be a part of those conversations. He checked the data the probe delivered. As he did he said, "You weren't a slave, you know. I did everything I could to make sure you had as much free will as that damned thing in your head would allow."

Steve cleared his throat. "I think I know that or remember it. But it's all hazy."

They dropped into a silence then and Tony wondered what thoughts drifted through Steve's head. 

The read out streamed over the transparent screen. The figures danced and fell almost in some kind of silent rhythm as he scanned them; there were mesmerizing and somehow comforting, distracting. He shouldn’t be looking for solace in the web of mathematics and data, but that was all Tony could deal with even when Steve was within touching distance. 

Tony cringed as he glanced to the side to see Steve laying fully awake in the open pod. He balled his hands into fists; his knuckles whitened and he worked his jaw as he clenched his teeth. Tony asked, “Are you in pain?”

“No.” Steve didn’t look at him. He kept his gaze outward but unfocused. His tolerance might have been admirable if it didn’t reflect his absolute hatred of being locking into the device as Tony checked out the readings again. 

“You’re sure?” Tony said and he tapped on his console for no other reason than to keep himself occupied and from internalizing Steve’s obvious discomfort. Everything Tony offered Steve seemed to cause more pain than solace or pleasure. 

He can't help now, but glance behind into the passenger bay of the QuinJet again. Steven's finally settled down next to Ava. She's offering him coloring books but he's eating the crayons again. Tony grins at that. Steven knows better but he loves to evoke the look of disgust on the adults' faces when he chews on them. Ava notices Tony looking into the cabin and she smiles. He knows she's happy to be getting back into the action again. Further in the back of the jet are Rhodes and Pepper. They're quietly discussing the newest developments. He cringes at the thought.

Conor.

He showed up at the Dome right after the celebration of Freedom Day there. It hadn't taken long for the party on the island to end and the plans for relaxation to be dismantled. The thought of seeing that son of a bitch riles Tony and he still argues that Steve should not have come along. It's too damned dangerous.

"You wanna talk about it?" Clint says as they hit cruising altitude.

"About?" Tony turns and faces the endless blue skies above and the cushion of clouds below them.

"About the fact you seem less happy now than when he was a Designate." Clint keeps his eyes on the controls. There's silver in his hair at this temples. Crows’ feet charm his eyes and there's a roughness to his looks that has only matured through-out the years.

"That's not true." Tony wants those words to be the truth, but he can feel their hollowness inside like an empty hole in his chest. "Not like you mean. Anyhow. "

"What do I mean?" Clint raises a brow at him and when did snarky Hawkeye get so damned wise?

"You mean I would rather have a slave and that's not who I am. That's never who I was." He still recalls all those years back in his youth with his Primary Designate and the other Designates and how they'd follow him around with that glassy look in their eyes and that troubled expression as if they were listening to voices in their heads. And they were to some degree. They would follow him around with their doleful eyes and listen to every order. Even then in the heat of his youth, he rallied against having a Primary Designate. It had been Obie who insisted, and Tony faltered in his stance. Obie had been like a father to him in so many ways. 

But Obie was dead and so were those Designates. Now, he’s something else, someone else entirely.

“I’m not saying that,” Clint says. “Let me ask you a question?”

Tony shrugs. What does he have to lose? “Sure, shoot.”

“What was your relationship before the end? I mean before he went to the Triskelion and the fall of the State?”

Tony screws up his mouth; this is pretty basic stuff. Clint should remember, but Tony lays it out for him. “Well, when Obie dropped him off he was like a deer in headlights and I’m not joking. He had this look like anytime the neural net dropped information into his head it was a surprise. Not like the other Designates I had previously.” 

Glancing back, he sees that Steve has closed his eyes but he’s obviously still awake. He’s nodding as Bucky talks. “I didn’t let him in on all the plans and what we needed to do. I admit that was a huge mistake. We had a lot of trust issues. Right before the Grains- things got heavy. I wanted it, and so did he. Or I thought he did. But with the implant you never know, right?” 

Clint only lifts shoulder as he stares out into the under layer of clouds. “You had time in the Dome together.”

“Yeah, we did. A little. It was difficult because I’d hidden the whole Extremis thing from him. I watched him get tortured, you know,” Tony says and licks his lips. His mouth is so dry. “He doesn’t know, but after the Grains, when we were both captured. I – they made me watch when they tortured him.” He rubs at his eyes as if he might be able to get rid of the memories. “I suppose it’s only fair because they made him watch the brain surgery they did on me.”

“I heard about that – you want to explain how you came out of that with your memories intact?”

Tony laughs. “I didn’t. Not really.” He lays a hand on his chest. He remembers how he thought things would be different after the Extremis trial. 

Clint isn’t impressed with his answer. “What’s that supposed to mean? You seemed pretty functional and able to help out when we got Steve out of there.”

“Yes, that’s because I downloaded a shit ton of information to the nanites that I already injected into my body.” 

“Are you saying you downloaded your brain?” 

“What, you think that’s impossible? Zola figured out how to do it back in the seventies. It only took a few hacks to find his method and improve upon it,” Tony says. “But then I had to make sure the nanites would survive the Extremis download. That was the tricky part.”  
Once again he touches the arc reactor as if it is a talisman for good luck. To most the arc reactor saves his heart. To him – it saved his life in more ways than just the physicality of his heart beat.

“So, you downloaded it all back into your brain?” Clint asks. He’s got the jet on autopilot and he’s turned in his pilot seat, his hands still busy. Clint’s hands are always busy. He’s checking over an arrow he pulled from god knows where. 

“Essentially,” Tony says and doesn’t explain further. No one needs to know. 

“And it’s all okay in there?” Clint says and he taps his own head with the arrow tip.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?” It’s been twenty five years. It all seems so long ago. The machinations and collusions he went through to get Extremis out of the State’s control. He did it all for good reasons, but how does he tell that to Steve now? What will Steve believe? That Tony went through all of hell to save the world or that he went through it all because he enjoyed it, that he wanted Steve to suffer. He recalls the day before they went to the Grains. He had to whip Steve, so that their cover would hold. 

The Grains were (and still are) an ugly place. The conclave of depravity and corruption felt like the pit of the world. There, people would take Designates to torture and to maim, to show to all the world how lowly and worthless a Designate life was. A Designate was not considered a human being after all. They had less rights than the dogs or cats of the world. Tony had needed to go there to find Killian and Extremis. He went under the guise of finding Rhodey and Pepper– but that had been a set up all along. Rhodey left him the coordinates and Tony went there with Steve – went to the Grains and forced him to partake in the horrible degeneracy of humanity. 

He brought Steve to the Grains not for personal gain but for the cause. How will Steve remember it though? What kinds of nightmares will follow him now? From all that Tony could tell the memories filtering up from the depths of Steve’s brain are not all that clear. How will Steve look at him? He did it all for good reasons – he told himself that a thousand times. But how would someone in Steve’s position look upon what had been done in the past for the greater good? 

Maybe he shouldn’t be talking about this with Clint. “I just want Steve to be happy.”

“At the expense of your own happiness?” Clint asks.

That irks him more than he can say. “Listen.” He looks Clint in the eyes. “Steve hasn’t been able to live his life for nearly a hundred years. If he decides that I am not going to be part of his life now, I’m good with that.” He turns around, to stare out into the sky. “If it means he leaves, I have to accept that and move on.”

“You’ve dedicated twenty five years to him,” Clint says.

“And I would again, but now, now it’s time for him to decide what he wants out of life.” Tony inhales but it doesn’t cleanse it only serves to emphasize how tight his chest feels. “I can’t dictate what he wants.”

“Do you want to be able to?” 

“Shit, no!” Tony hisses. Didn’t he already say that? What the fuck is up with Barton? “What the hell do you take me for, Barton?”

He raises his hands. The arrow dangles from his fingertips. “Don’t shoot. I know you don’t, but the fact remains, you loved someone for a long time who you didn’t really know all that much.”

“I knew him. I knew Captain America.”

“And there it is,” Clint says and flips the arrow through his fingers and back into the quiver hanging from the pilot’s chair back. “You know a myth. You don’t know the man.”

“Don’t I? I know him, I know him,” Tony says and he feels like a chasm splits open inside of his chest and all of his hopes leaks out like red blood streaming down from the fissure. He knows what Clint is going to say next, he begs him – silently in his head – not to say it. 

He does not comply.

“Then why are you sitting up here talking to me instead of him?”

“Don’t do that,” Tony says. It surges within him, that feeling of inadequacy and emptiness. He’s failed because he knows, he just knows that Clint is fucking right. “Don’t. He needs time to adjust.”

Clint quirks a brow and says, “Or you do.”

He chews on his words, swallowing down the retort. After a few minutes of silence that happens to claw away at his insides, he gets up and nods to Clint. For what? He doesn’t know. Instead he goes to the back of the QuinJet. He should talk to Pepper or Rhodey. Or even Ava, play with Steven (who has now fallen asleep slumped in the chair). He doesn’t. He finds a little corner and spins his chair to check on the computer read outs. This is who he is. This is what they need him to be.

His mind goes back to the central problem of the neural net embedded in Steve’s head. He wants to ensure it is not a danger to Steve anymore, so he goes through the data again, calling it up and scanning it. He doesn’t want any surprises and he’s damned sure Steve doesn’t want any either. He glances down at the shining light in his chest. The arc reactor saved him many times in his life. More so than most people understand or realize. He keeps that secret; he keeps it safe. He cringes. Not even Rhodey knows the full truth about it.

“Tony?”

He jerks because the last person he thought would come up to him or engage him freely without prompting would be Steve. He steels himself for another awkward, painful interaction. How he just wants these to end. He glances up at Steve, who’s currently loitering near Tony’s chair, though there’s a perfectly good seat right next to him in the cabin.

“Yeah?”

Steve points to said chair and says, “Do you mind if I sit?”

It is going to be horribly awkward with long spaces between their forced conversations. He still wants to mourn his daydreams about what this day would be like – to have Steve free from the neural net. The last few days at the compound had been a little like he’s trudging through molasses. The air felt thick around him, and every glance, every interaction with Steve only bore out his previous discomfiture until it maximized and inflated. 

“Hmm, sure,” he says because he can’t say no. How can he say no?

Steve spins the chair so it faces Tony and puts his back to the rest of the passengers. They are safety tucked away from Clint’s prying eyes, thankfully. Steve settles into the seat and, of course, buckles the seat belt. He looks up at Tony with an open smile on his face and, for the first time, Tony feels like he should say something nice. Anything.

“Safety first,” Tony mutters and curses himself for watching too much _Thomas the Tank Engine_ with Steven. 

Steve giggles at that and then he says, “I kind of remember that one. I think I got that reference.” He scratches at the implant.

“Yeah, well, you watched enough of it with Steven over the past few years. And quite a bit of the older shows when the kids were little,” Tony says. He needs to go back to the data. But there’s nothing he really needs to do with it. He starts fishing for problems.

“The memories, they feel -.”

“You said,” Tony interrupts because he doesn’t want to go over this again. Just hearing Steve talk about their life together like it was some kind of old movie hurts.

“No, I wanted to tell you that some-,” Steve starts but he bows his head. When he looks back up his eyes are wide and searching. “Some of the memories are coming closer. I didn’t want to say anything this morning before we disembarked. You seemed busy, distant. So I didn’t want to bother you with the -.” Now he stops and touches his implant.

“What?” This screams alarm bells in Tony head. “Does it hurt?”

Steve ducks his head and peers to the side at Bucky and Sam who are conversing. Once he sees that Bucky seems engaged, he turns back to Tony. “I blacked out a little this morning at breakfast.”

“What? You what?”

Steve puts his finger up to his mouth to signal to Tony to quiet down. “Don’t. It wasn’t a big deal. It was only for a few seconds and then a memory rushed into my head. And for the first time I felt everything around the memory. Everything. It wasn’t like watching someone else’s life from a far. That’s good right?”

He’s almost afraid to ask, but he does anyway – he needs the data as a scientist. He tells himself these lies. “What was the memory?”

“Eating,” he says with a little twitch of his lips into a smile. He’s enjoying the memory, Tony can tell. 

“Eating? Like having a hot dog at Coney Island or something?” How fascinating could a memory of eating be considering it’s something that has to be done every day? But then since most of Steve’s memories have been abducted in one form or another by the neural net and its nanites - getting one back – not as an alien image that seems to have happened to someone else as a real honest memory with feelings and all that involves must be the reason he looks flush and happy.

“No, no,” Steve says and he does that little bob of his head and smiles at Tony. “It was of you. You were feeding me. I know in the memory I couldn’t move much more than my head, and you were there and you were feeding me.”

During the weeks that Steve lay paralyzed after the take down of the State, Tony spent long hours by his side. He would read to him, bathe him, feed him. Everything that needed to be done that Tony could do, he did. They owed so much to Steve. He’d volunteered to go into the belly of the beast and deliver the blow that would allow the assault on the Triskelion. In the end, it nearly killed Steve. 

“Yes, yes, I did,” Tony says but he keeps his eyes averted.

“I remember it. You were feeding me soup, broth really. I suppose it was early on in my recovery. At least I get that feeling,” Steve says. He’s got his hands in front of him, his eyes stare off to the memory as it replays in his head. “You were trying not to tell me that the paralysis would be permanent. You were so afraid of things.”

“I still am,” he says and curses inwardly that he let the words slip out.

“I understand, Tony,” Steve says. Tony faces Steve and sees the look of longing in his eyes. It is not a desire or a passion but more of a yearning to connect, to understand what he’s missed and is missing. “I know it’s been tough, hard between us. That you- you’re afraid of something. I don’t know what. But I want I felt in that memory, fragmented as it is, I felt the love. You loved me, didn’t you?”

Tony swallows down the words, the explanations. He swallows them down, ingests them until he cannot hold anymore. He’s gorged with the pain. “I did what had to be done.”

“But you loved me?”

“Love,” Tony says and now he isn’t going to look at Steve. He cannot meet his gaze. “I love you. That’s the truth. I’ve lived with you, taken care of you, given you what I could.”

“You still love me?” Steve says and there’s a curious ring to his voice.

It draws Tony to Steve’s gaze. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I?”

Steve only sits back in his chair and opens his mouth a bit as if he’s trying to figure out a long and difficult puzzle. Something pained crosses his features, but he suppresses it and holds it in. “You don’t have to, you know.”

“Don’t have to what?”

“Love me. You’re not obligated,” Steve says.

“And what is it about my feelings do you think comes from a sense of obligation,” Tony says and his voice raises.

Steve waves him to quiet down and glances over at Bucky whose frowning at Steve. Steve makes this odd little screwed up face at Bucky who only chuckles in reply. Soon, Steve turns back to Tony. Tony’s getting sick to death of people questioning whether or not he really loves Steve for Steve.

Fuck.

“I don’t mean it like that,” Steve says. He inhales a heavy breath and then slowly exhales. “I mean that I tied you down for so many years. Good years of your life and I don’t want that. I don’t think I ever wanted that. Not for you.”

Tony wonders about that last caveat. _Not for you_. Should he make the leap and ask Steve how he feels about Tony? No, that cannot happen. Tony might not be the strongest person in the world, but hell if he’s going to face down his fears right now. 

“It wasn’t a burden,” Tony says and immediately realizes how very unbelievable that sounds unless he claims to be a saint. “Not like you think anyway. Sure, there were times it was difficult. But there were times when you were almost you, too.” 

“Yeah?” Steve says and he leans a little close to Tony. “Would you tell me a little about that? When I was more like me?” 

Memories percolate up and he discards most of them. It isn't as if they are all tainted but he wants to show Steve that something of his past, their past together was worth it. Telling him how he loved to watch Steve on the beach with his grandchild or how he often observed from a far Steve teaching his children to read are lovely images. Yet they do nothing to assuage the aching gap of life between them. Nor do they help Steve understand that he was not a burden, nor was he completely subservient the entire time. Underneath it all, Steve was still Steve.

One small item that Tony never shares with anyone is tucked away in his luggage. Ava knows, of course. But it has been an unwritten rule that they kept this little secret between them. In some ways it brought pain, bright and foreboding to Tony and to Ava. Yet at the same time it also signified hope. He looks at Steve and realizes this is something he cannot hide. This is something that Steve deserves to know.

Taping the console, Tony sighs and then shuts down the data stream. "I might have something you would be interested in." Before he gets up to fetch the article, he stops and weighs what he’s about to open up. “You need to trust me on this one, okay? I know you don’t remember a whole heck of a lot, but I do have your best interests at heart.”

With a startling open gaze that he’s not used to, Steve analyzes Tony’s expression. As he does, Tony swears he can see the ideas, the images, the thoughts flash and play a subtle dance over his face. But he steels his reaction and says, “I remember some of it, Tony. I know you were kind all these years. My Ma always said a person can be beautiful, can be rich, can be popular but if that person isn’t kind, well, then they’re not worth it. It means the world to me that you were there for me.”

Tony chews the inside of his cheek, trying not to react, trying not to let his emotions get the best of him. He does a quick nod and, without looking at Steve, says, “You stay here, I’ll be right back.” He unsnaps the buckle of his seat belt. Going to the back of the Quinjet where the bags and other crates are stored, Tony fishes out his bag and opens the luggage. Stuck under his clothes he finds what he's looking for and flips over the books to retrieve the right one. Originally, his plan had been to bring these to the Dome so that Bruce could review them. It might be a moot point now that Steve seems to be back but still the sketch books reveal a lot of what's happened underneath the surface and deep into the inner workings of the implant in Steve's head. He gets one of the sketch books that he believes should be the most benign and sets it aside. The others he tucks under his clothes again and zips up the bag. Clutching the sketch book to his chest Tony cannot believe how nervous he is. His hands sweat, his heart rams in his chest. He feels sick and dizzy and horribly hopeful.

He passes Pepper and Rhodey, both of whom give him those concerned looks. How he's begun to really resent that look. It embodies everything he disdains. He doesn't want pity or sympathy. His life has been dedicated to a grand purpose. To save a love. The love of his life. He wants others to realize that as well. When Pepper starts to unbuckle her belt as if to follow him, Tony only shakes his head and beelines it to the corner where Steve still sits.

Smiling at Steve after throwing Rhodey an intense glare, he sits down and offers the book. Before he lets go of it, he says, "I want you to promise me that you'll listen to me. That you'll trust me. Not all of these drawings will make sense to you. But -." He stops and swallows back the sorrow. "But when you were drawing I think those were the times you were most free of that thing in your head."

Tony releases the sketch book into Steve's hand. Steve holds it for a good two or three minutes, just looking at the plain brown leather cover. He strokes it like it is precious. "I remember the cover. I thought it was too expensive for me. Only a Designate. Shouldn't have such things."

"Yeah, well, I insisted," Tony whispers and curls fingers over his mouth as if to stop any of the flood of emotions from breaking through.

Taking in a breath, Steve flips open the book. On the inside cover page there's a beautifully written name - in styled calligraphy. It hurts to see it but this - this -Tony has to let Steve see.

It's a name.

_Primary Designate Stark Family_

Steve touches the words but doesn't smear them.

"You insisted that was your name. I called you Steve, but you didn't like it." Tony bites back his lips. He sighs. "I tried to make sure you could accept your own name but that was base programming even Maria Hill co-." He stops when he notices Steve's bright eyed stare. "I'm sorry, that name must bring back-."

"Confusing memories." Steve drops his gaze. "Part of me is thankful that she trained me and that because of her I was a good Designate for you. I think it's a residual feeling from the neural net. But the other part." He fists his hands so much that Tony worries he's going to rip the book.

"Hey, hey," Tony says. "You don't have to do this now."

Giving himself a little shake and then relaxing his hands, Steve says, "Yeah, I do."

Tony glances over at Bucky who watches them with a keen eye. The amount of counseling Bucky has been through will be a guide for them with Steve. Bucky was a Designate far longer than Steve.

Bucky nods to Tony and presses his lips together. His eyes are dark with worry- he knows what Steve is up against. It hurts.

The flipping of the pages brings Tony's attention back to Steve. He's staring at drawing after drawing. Some of them are of Ava and Conor as children. Some are of Tony. Others are scenic. Some Tony can only guess are of Steve's youth. A few are of Aunt Peggy when she was young.

One is of a woman Tony could not identify. He remembers Steve's struggle to draw it. After each small part of a sketch he would have seizures and Tony would have to hide the sketch book for a few days. But Steve stops on it.

In a whispered voice he says, "Ma."

"You only drew her once. I had to tell you to stop and not draw her anymore. You had a lot of seizures anytime you drew her." It makes sense now. But Tony wants to celebrate in some small way. He wants to scream and yell and clap. Steve had battled that thing in his head and translated that fight into art. The books and pages are proof of his success.

Steve lingers on the page for a few seconds more and then turns it to find a drawing of Ava and Conor. They are all of ten in the sketch. The way the sun glints off Conor's hair and Ava runs across the beach, Tony can tell it is probably one of their few good days with Conor. Conor stares front and center. His eyes are just like Steve's and his smile is genuine for once. He looks happy and sweet. A child full of promise.

"He hates me," Steve says. "He hates me."

"He's fucked up in the head is what he is," Tony days and he wants to take the sketch book and flip the page but he can't. This is Steve's life and he deserves to know all of it - the good and the bad. "I don't know what I did wrong."

Steve meets Tony's gaze. "He told me once he wanted to hurt me because of what I did to his life."

"That's a bunch of bullshit. We - you saved the world. Did he even realize his purpose Pierce was using you to make an army of indestructible Designates?" Tony leans back feeling weaker, spent, hollow inside. "Conor wanted to think he was something better."

“Pierce,” Steve rasps and closes his eyes. Tony leans forward and wants to apologize but Steve gets himself together, forces the pain and trauma back down, burying it. "Conor wanted me dead." Steve turns the page.

To the horror.

It isn't so much as what's drawn on the next few pages but what's not. Tony forces himself not to grab for the book, tear it away from Steve and destroy it. The next sketches are self portraits. The build, the shoulders, even the clothes clearly indicate that it's Steve. Everything about it. There's one with all four of them, as a family. It's a beautiful day, the laughter on Tony's face only marred by a worry caught in his gaze toward Steve's figure. Clutched in Steve's arms is his daughter. She's only five or six, and yanking his way out of the drawing is Conor as he pulls Tony away from the group. It is a wonderful action pose caught and forever memorialized.

Except.

Except for Steve. He's perfectly captured in every way. Except.

For his face.

There is no face.

In any of the drawings. In all of them Steve is faceless. The blank white of the paper screams against the relief of the lines and shading for the other figures.

It's startling and chilling.

Steve stares at the figures, the drawing. His mouth partially open as he touches the empty features.

"It's how I knew you were still in there. Somehow. It told me that the neural net was fighting you, but-."

"I wasn't winning," Steve says. "I'm not sure I won."

Tony cannot let that go so he places his hand over the disturbing portraiture. "You won, you won. Look at you now."

"It stole everything from me," Steve says and he using a finger to trail and trace the lines of Tony's hand. "All my life. It's gone."

"You might be a hundred, baby, but you still look 23." Tony tries to be upbeat about it.

"My children grew up and I don't know them, their stories." He cranes his neck to look behind him to the front section of the jet. Sleeping, Ava and Steven are cuddled next to one another. "I know fragments. Figments of reality. It's like I slept and the dream I can't remember keeps following me." He stops touching Tony's hand for a moment but then pulls the book away to close it. "You know I used to never give up, never give in."

"Yeah, you're kind of famous for that one." It feels like a bitter herb on his tongue.

"Now, now I don't even know what there is to fight or stand up for."

Tony slips off his seat and places a hand on Steve's shoulder, spinning the chair so that they can view their daughter and grandson. His face is inches away from Steve's as he says, "Sure, you do."

A softness comes over Steve’s features and then he turns to Tony. His warm breath like needed air against Tony’s cheek. “I have you to thank. If you hadn’t been there, what purpose would I have served?”

That statement jolts Tony – it is something that he would expect a Designate to say and not a free person. He moves away from the intimacy of their touch. “You shouldn’t think like that – you had purpose regardless. Everyone has purpose.”

“Not when I was without the neural net, right? I was paralyzed.”

“Shit, don’t start any ablest crap on me,” Tony says and he cannot even keep the fire out of his voice. “Do you know how many sleepless nights I had – that I put you under the Designate, that I sacrificed your consciousness so that you could move and work with us as we rebuilt after the State? Do you know how it felt for me?”

“I don’t mean it like that-.” Steve stops and then closes his eyes, rubbing at them. He slumps down in the seat and then looks at Tony. “It’s all jumbled and I’m not sure who I was or what I was anymore. I spent 23 years as a runt of a kid, then a few years at war. I slept in the ice for nearly seventy and then I spent that last twenty five years as a servant, a Designate to you. I don’t know who I am or what I am.”

That’s when Bucky answers – he must have gotten up and joined them after Tony gave his short little speech. “I can tell you who you are. You are just a kid from Brooklyn, always have been, always will be.” He smiles with a lift of his metal shoulder. “It’s who you are, Steve. You’ll get there. I’m still getting there. I was a Designate for nearly fifty years and before that I was a Soviet assassin, brainwashed and modified. It takes time. I’m still getting there.”

Steve nods and Tony glances up at Bucky. He might be slightly irritated with Bucky for interrupting, but at the same time, he’s depended on Bucky throughout the years and the last few days to support Steve. During the Freedom Day celebration, Bucky was especially useful. Steve seemed out of his element and kept mixing up the days and years. Bucky kept his cool and sat by Steve even as he asked the same questions over and again.

“I’m not sure where we are?” Steve asked as they all sat out on the beach. Twilight purpled the sky and the waves rolled into a darker, heavier color as night descended.

It must have been the twentieth time that Bucky answered, “We’re on an island in the Caribbean.”

“Really?” Steve said and then scratched at his implant. “I think this thing did something to my brain.”

“Take some time,” Bucky said. “Don’t expect to remember it all at once.”

“Was it like this for you?” Steve had asked.

“It was different for me. Extremis worked on me. I had an older version of the Designate implant and the nanites in my system, plus a slightly different version of the serum.” 

“Extremis?” Steve asked and then his gaze drifted over to Tony who had been quietly observing the two from a lounge chair. He reclined as Steven slept on top of him. Steve looked at the two of them and then said, “Tony has Extremis. I saw his brains on the floor.” He shivered then and added, “Where are we again?”

It went on like that until they finally conceded that maybe Steve needed the stress and excitement of the day to dwindle down and they ushered him off to bed. Bucky had become a confidant and a support player who now took on a major role. 

Steve hunches over in his seat on the plane, hands clasped in front of him. “Thanks, I appreciate it. I don’t know why I feel disoriented still.”

“That’s because you always push yourself.”

“Listen to this guy,” Tony says and points to Bucky. “He knows what he’s talking about.”

Steve shifts his focus between the two of them and then he laughs – it’s nasally and sweet. “Now I have two of you looking out for me. And I’m not even a ninety pound weakling anymore.”

“You kind of inspire that in people, you know,” Bucky says and Tony can’t help but smile. It feels like the first time he’s smiled in decades. 

“I’m getting that idea,” Steve says. “Not sure it’s a good one.”

Tony takes Steve’s shoulder again and gives him a little jerk. “Give it time. You are worth it, you know. I kind of think so anyway.” Picking up the sketchbook, Tony gets up. “I’ll stash this in my bag again okay?”

Steve considers him but his eyes wander to the leather bound sketch book and, for a long minute, Tony thinks about leaving it with him. But then Steve nods and says, “Okay.”

Tony hesitates but then heads back to the cargo area. He hauls out his bag again and opens it. Tossing the sketch book, he sees the others – the ones Steve is not ready to see. He peels open one of the books and cringes at the drawings. Did Steve really think of himself this way as a Designate? Did he think of himself as so long and so very subservient? Did he think of himself as less than human as these sketches show or did he think of himself as unworthy of life as the other sketches depict. 

Tony doesn’t know the answers – but he does know that now that Steve is healing and on the way to being an active member of society. One day he’s going to remember some of these drawings. Steve is going to recall feeling this way. And Tony has to be ready for it. He has to prepare. 

“Hey.”

Tony jumps as Sam leans against the back cargo door. He tucks the book back into the suitcase. “Hey.”

“You and Steve seem a little more on even ground.”

“We’re trying to get there,” Tony says. He peeks over Sam’s shoulder to see that Bucky and Steve are practically touching foreheads. They are close – and Tony shouldn’t feel jealousy. Bucky has been nothing but helpful over the last few days. 

“He’s only trying to help,” Sam says and Tony notices the tension in the man’s shoulders. 

“You’re worried – about Bucky or Steve?” Tony asks. Over the years, Sam has become close both to Bucky and Steve. Sam had been a Designate, and he’d also been one of the earliest treatments with Extremis to cut off the Designate web and shut down the implant in his head. With the rescue of Bucky, Sam took him under his wing and helped him re-equilibrate into the world. It hadn’t always been easy, but Sam also took it upon himself to be a strong presence in Steve’s life as well. It helped over the years, but now – now Steve barely knows any of them.

“I’m worried mainly about Steve,” Sam says with a small shrug. “Bucky, I can handle. He’s been bugging me for years. I can read him pretty well these days.”

Tony considers the circumstances, how Steve must feel. “He must be so lost.”

“And Bucky’s the one person he’s hanging on to tight because he’s the one he remembers the most,” Sam says. He lets that weigh on Tony’s shoulders like he doesn’t have enough to worry about as it is. “What do you have there?” He lifts a chin to the suitcase and the leather bound sketch books.

“Nothing, it’s not important,” Tony says and he places a hand over one of the books as if it might block Sam’s view.

“Hiding things from him is probably not the way to go,” Sam comments.

“I’m not hiding,” Tony says. “He’s just not ready for them yet.” 

Sam accepts Tony’s explanation and then says, “Just remember, neither one of you are alone in this. You have to accept help, even if it comes from places or people you didn’t expect.”

Tony nods. “Yeah, I get that.”

“I hope you do,” Sam says and turns back to the passenger section of the jet. 

Tony doesn’t follow, instead he stands at his suitcase and stares at the sketch books. He’s bringing them for Bruce. He should have fessed up to the existence of the books a long time ago. Ava knows about them, but she doesn’t know everything about them. He can still remember one of the times when she was very small – one of the times she found the sketch books.

He’d been in their suite at the Dome. Conor had been taken by Bucky to go to his latest and greatest psychological evaluation. It had become clear early on that Conor’s angry outbursts weren’t getting any better, in fact they were getting worse. He could not be trusted around other children. He could never be trusted around Steve.

It had been a warmer day than normal at the Dome and Ava had just come in from picking wildflowers and clutched a bunch of them in her dirty little hand. She gave them to Tony and smiled at him. He scooped them up and found an old Mason jar to put them in. While he got some water in the kitchen, Ava had wandered into the living room. Steve had been in there – of course it was Steve as the Designate – not really Steve. 

As Tony filled up the jar with water, he listened to her babbling. He wasn’t sure if Steve was still in the living room or if he’d gone down to the lab for his afternoon hook up to the pod. Because of his many medical issues, Steve often had to spend huge amounts of time in the pod or getting dosed with medication. Tony finished filling up the Mason jar with water and stuffed the wildflowers into the glass container. He wasn’t a florist. Frowning at it, he’d tried to get it to look somewhat pleasing. He decided to bring it into the living room so that Ava could critique his work. 

Walking into the small space with its one couch and coffee table with a large screen opposite the couch, Tony noticed Ava paging through the sketch book. It wasn’t until she turned to him, white faced and eyes wide that he realized something was wrong.

She picked up the book and said, “What happened to Da? Why?” She turned the book so he could see it, he dropped the jar of flowers. It crashed to the floor, shattering and spilling the water and stems all over the tile. He’d rushed over to her and tore the sketch book from her hands. Leaving the mess, he folded up the drawings and shook his head. 

“Don’t you look at Da’s stuff again. Do you hear me? You shouldn’t look at this ever again,” Tony said. His voice must have terrified her – the fear in his chest ricocheted and reverberated in his tone. He practically snarled at her. “Do you understand? Not ever again.”

“Yes, Poppa, yes,” she cried then hard and long and he couldn’t console her at all. Nothing he said or did stopped her and Tony felt as if he had fallen and his fragments were scattered all over the floor instead of the flowers and the glass shards . Even as he picked up the broken jar, and gathered up the wilted flowers he could still hear her hiccupping cries from her bedroom.

He had spent time looking at the drawings. They had been memories – memories of Steve’s training. Of what they did to him. Many times the drawings were crude with slash marks all over them in red pastel. Others were meticulous and perfect in their rendering, though it only served to show how very clinical and sterile the thoughts of his training were. In many of the drawings, Steve had written words.

_Failure_

_Excrement_

_Worthless_

Always the words were scrawled over the place where Steve’s face should be. Tony thought about stopping Steve, not allowing him to draw anymore. There were times when drawing caused Steve immeasurable pain, but there were other times when he drew something about their life where he seemed more content, more like himself as a person and not as a Designate. Tony could not take that away.

He monitored everything Steve did, every sketch, every drawing. 

Tony’s life had become a series of dots, pixelated where he needed to check each and every pixel. He looks over at Steve who seems quiet now. Bucky has moved off. Steve has his eyes closed and he looks calm and not tense or in pain. That in and of itself is a pleasure to see. Maybe this is the first step in a better place for both of them to be. Tony has to admit to himself – the last twenty five years have been more than difficult. Now, they have time to live and to be something to one another. 

He has to admit also, the one thing that scares him is that Steve might not love him anymore. But he can’t hold onto the thought of the Steve as he was because that would be condemning him to the imprisonment by the neural net. It is what Tony has been working against all these years. Having Steve free of it – that’s all that matters – and this is a new phase in his life now. 

He settles in his chair and reclines – it is a long flight, over 20 hours. The Dome sits up in the Canadian territories where the diamond mines and the ice roads that lead to those mines during the winter are. Aunt Peggy and his father hid it up in Canada because it had been one of the places that was a Rogue State at the time. Plus it worked as one of the receipt and delivery for the diamonds of the mines, so it had a cover as well as a vehicle to make money to support the resistance effort. It worked like a charm. He has to admit: dear old dad had some good ideas once in a while. 

As the Quinjet flies over the plains and northward, Tony sleeps. Most of the passengers take naps. Tony notices that, partially through the flight, Rhodes takes the pilot chair so that Clint can catch some sleep as well. At one point, Sam also pilots the jet. With the three of them, they manage to get the jet to Canada and the Dome without having to stop for any breaks. The fuel is low by the time they finally taxi on the runway outside the Dome. During the whole flight, Tony succeeded in not thinking about the main reason why they cut their Freedom Day celebration short.

Conor.

Everything always comes down to the bastard. Apparently, he’d showed up at the Dome begging for Bruce to let him in and then collapsing from exhaustion. Or so said Bruce upon examination and assessment of Conor’s physical health. While Ava had been considering going back to the Dome and getting back into the action again as Iron Maiden, Tony doesn’t think any of them hoped they would be headed back to the Dome under these circumstances. As the jet stops and the landing crew outside hurries to help unload it, Tony gestures for Bucky to join him.

“I need you to make sure Conor doesn’t get anywhere close to Steve,” Tony says as Bucky steps close to Tony.

Pepper engages Steve in some small talk as Ava tries to catch an over excited little boy. Bucky shakes his head. “Steve’s not going to like that. Believe me, no one could ever tell Steve what to do or when to do anything.”

“Doesn’t matter. Until we know what Conor’s game is, I just don’t want him close to Steve.”

“That might be impossible,” Bucky says. “I just want to prepare you. Steve does what he wants. You’re not used to that. At all.”

Tony cannot deny the truth, so he shrugs. “What other choice do I have?”

“Let him decide,” Bucky says and winks as he backs up toward the ramp to disembark. “He’s gonna do it anyhow and it’s just gonna piss you off.”

Bucky turns and jogs to catch up with Sam as he crosses the tarmac toward the garage of the Dome. It’s winter and the snap in the air chills Tony to the bone. He’s not used to the cold anymore; the warm weather has thinned his blood. Steve steps up to him and there’s light on his face and an excitement in his smile. 

“Well, this is going to be all overwhelming,” Steve says.

“You don’t seem upset about it.”

Steve laughs. And how good it feels to hear that laughter. “Oh, I’m cruising on the level of way beyond that now.”

“Got to the point where everything’s just a nice numb feeling, huh?” Tony asks.

“Something like that,” Steve says. “Ava said she’d show me to our suite. We have a suite?”

They’ve had a residence here for years. “Yeah, my dad and Peggy Carter kind of built the place.”

“Peggy,” Steve says and a smile flitters across his face. “She’s-.”

“She died peacefully and happily after we secured the freedom of the world,” Tony says. It still hurts after all these years. “She lived to see the world released from the hell of Hydra. I think that’s quite an accomplishment for her, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do.” Steve cringes as he speaks and then puts a hand to his temple. 

Alarmed, Tony reaches out to touch Steve who only jerks back in response. He pulls back his hand but keeps it raised. “Okay, okay? Are you okay?”

Steve shields his eyes with his hand and only nods. “Yeah, it’s just that sometimes - sometimes I don’t want to remember. I know I should.” He drops his hand. “I was always the kid who wouldn’t give up. Scrawny, a stiff wind could knock me over, but I still cooked up enough fights in my day to make sure I had one bloody nose or a split lip a week. But now, now I just don’t want to have to face it.”

“What do you think you have to face?” Tony says and slowly lowers his hands. He aches to touch Steve, but he respects his personal space which is loads more important than Tony’s emotional issues right now. 

“I don’t know.” Steve smirks. “I’m afraid of shadows. How’s that for Captain America?”

“It’ll take a while. Didn’t your buddy Bucky tell you that?”

“Yeah, I think he did.” Steve inhales sharply. “The rat left me here to face it on my own. Told me to hone up to it and get it done. Sometimes I think he likes the idea that I have no idea what the hell is going on.”

“Well, first off, Captain America does not swear.”

“Well, that’s something I’ll have to change,” Steve says and smiles. “Plus I’m pretty sure I do.”

“Look at that, you’re smiling,” Tony says and somehow something inside of him eases. Just to have a regular, non-strained discussion with Steve is a pleasant and wonderful surprise. The wind kicks up and swirls a dusting of snow up the ramp way. Tony hisses at the chill and turns to Steve. “It’s colder than a witch’s tit out there.”

“I’d like to know the last time you touched a witch’s tit,” Steve says and raises a brow at him.

Tony laughs; he bursts out with a belly laugh. It’s too good, too perfect. This person standing in front of him is nothing like the person he’s literally been taking care of for the last quarter of a century. Steve places a hand on Tony’s shoulder as he tries to calm down. 

“Are you okay?”

“I’m going to be, I think?” Tony says and they start down the ramp like that with Steve’s hand on Tony’s shoulder. It eventually drops as they cross the tarmac to the large bay of the garage for the Dome. When he enters the bay with his arms tight over his chest, he scans the area – the huge bay is like an airport hangar only larger. It’s big enough to hold three large jets. People scramble around them as trucks enter the bay and others leave. It’s an active site for commerce and trade. It also serves at the main airport for the Dome. 

By the time they head over to the arched doors to the main corridor for the Dome, the wind and the cold of the winter season outside the walls bites at him and he shivers. Steve doesn’t seem affected by the cold – at least outwardly. Tony searches around the place and the expression on his face shows he’s parsing what he remembers with the holes in his brain. He narrows his eyes as they join the rest of their party at the entrance to the Dome proper.

Bucky waits there, along with the rest of them. Steven giggles and laughs as Ava tries to contain his excitement. He keeps asking to go outside and play in the snow.

“It’s a little cold right now, honey,” Ava says but then Steven turns to his grandfather and hangs on his legs.

“Da, outside?” 

Steve takes it surprisingly well. He leans down and hoists the boy up into his arms. Steven laughs and cries out, “Outside! Snow!”

“Maybe we should get something to eat and then outside?” Steve promises and Steven frowns but he nuzzles next to Steve’s shoulder and settles quickly. He always did when Steve held him, but these last few days it has been hard on the boy. With Steve still adjusting to life, it had been a struggle for Steven to understand that his grandfather didn’t really remember him.

Ava approaches. She reaches to take Steven out of her father’s arms. “I can take him.”

Steve strains to see the boy’s face against his shoulder and then shakes his head. “I can take him. He’s yawning. I think he’s about to fall asleep again.”

“Are you sure?” Ava asks with a nervous little laugh. This is her father, but she turns to Tony for guidance. Ava doesn’t know this man, this stranger holding her son.

Tony smiles and says, “Let him take Steven.”

“Besides I kissed a lot of babies on tour, you know.” Steve kisses his grandson’s blond head and Bucky only snickers.

“You should have seen the outfit. Everyone brought babies to the show so they could get an up close and personal on those tights,” Bucky says.

“How would you know? You weren’t there,” Steve says.

“Oh, I saw the outfit,” Bucky replies and the friendly banter feels good. Tony can almost believe they are on the main road toward healing. Almost.

As they enter the main corridor to the facility, the rush and activity of the Dome comes colliding at them with a force of a megaton blast. Living in the compound by the beach for all of these years – isolated and with few interactions – truly has changed his perceptions. It takes a moment for him to get situated and he immediately thinks of Steve. Concern for Steve elevates as he checks in, but Steve seems oblivious to the activity.

“You’re adjusting pretty well,” Tony says as they all march toward the central Dome area. He half expected Fury or Hill to be at the bay to greet them. 

Steve strokes the boy’s back as they walk. “This, this is nothing compared to the neural net noise. It was so deafening sometimes-.”

Bucky chimes in. “It’s like a god damned party gone wrong in there.” 

Sam, who’s walking next to Bucky, agrees, “There were times I just wanted to beg for silence. That thing never let up, not even when you slept.”

He’d never truly thought about it that way, and now he appreciates the moments that Steve would lie quietly at his feet as the Designate. Those times, Tony intuitively knew to keep the silence in the house, to only sit with Steve. He would sometimes murmur single words but they never made much sense. Tony tried not to worry about them, but now it seems more like an attempt by Steve to find some inner peace. How close Steve was to the surface astounds him.

“So this, this is child’s play,” Steve says and they turn the corner to the main steps up to the central Dome. As they climb the few steps, Tony braces himself for the hell they are entering, but it seems surreal, almost serene in comparison to the crowded hallways and activity within the outer portions of the Dome. This is the hub, the central area of operations where the world’s security is handled and the Federated Union is kept glued together. It might not actually be the Capital – but the central operations still resides here.

Tony surveys the area – it hasn’t changed that much. Sure the computer consoles and holographic display screens are upgraded. Most of the operators wear headsets that allow them direct links to the computer systems, though none of it is implanted. People are leery of implants – and so the whole idea of what Conor spouted about modified humans not being humans is a key fear these days that Conor’s playing off of quite brilliantly. 

As they enter the Dome several guards approach, but it is Daisy (formerly Skye – Tony has to keep remembering that she doesn’t go by her Designate name anymore) who greets them.

“Great to see you,” she says and he notes she has braces on both of her arms. He’s not sure what that’s about, but he doesn’t ask – now is not the time. Her hair is dyed purple but she looks well and healthy - young because she’s a former Designate that benefited from Extremis. “Not the greatest circumstances, mind you.”

“Daisy.”

That single word and reprimand comes from the man of the hour, Fury. He’s aging but Tony thinks he must drink the souls of the innocents to keep his energy. He strides over to them, his long black leather coat swaying as he does. “Good to see you, Iron Woman. When can I expect you back in the air?”

Ava responds before Tony can deny her. “Soon, sir. I’d like to take the armor out for a spin tomorrow, if possible.” 

“Good, we got some situations that are getting worse. We need Iron Woman, Falcon, Winter Soldier, and possibly Quake to go.”

“Quake is not released yet.” Natasha walks up to them. She leads the security forces team. She is a former Designate as well and doesn’t look a day over thirty with the benefit of Extremis.

“Quake?” Tony says and Natasha only shakes her head.

“We’ll have a briefing,” Natasha replies. She’s in a smart leather jacket that’s short waisted, along with jeans, knee high boots and a sweater peeking out from under the jacket. “We have other things to be concerned about today. Let them in.” The guards move back and Tony along with the rest of his party step into the main Dome. She gestures toward the central area that has glass walls but they are tinted dark right now.

“I don’t want any surprises,” Tony says.

“Well, you already know he’s here so that’s not going to be a surprise, is it?” Natasha says and opens the double glass doors to the main conference room. 

He doesn’t expect – he’d thought that Natasha and Fury would have brief them on the circumstances before allowing anything to happen. As the doors open, the rail thin man sitting at the head of the table closest to the door, stands up. His clothes are ill fitting, his hair hangs in his face, and his eyes are deep shallows like the shoals of the ocean. He doesn’t smile but glances from face to face until he stops on Steve’s face. A play of emotions skitters over Conor’s face- confusion, pain, hurt, and something else – something foreign. Elation.

“Da!” He cries out and jumps out of his seat. Tony wants to intercede, but before anyone other than Steve can react, Conor throws himself from the chair into Steve’s arms who only just gets Tony to take the toddler from him. Conor buries his face in Steve’s shoulder, his whole body shuddering. Tony flinches but holds onto Steven as he watches the odd play between father and son.

“Da, Da,” he mutters. Conor’s voice sounds like a child’s in pain and Tony cannot help but worry. What happened to him? Why? What’s wrong? Is this a play for their emotions? What the hell is going on?

Steve folds the young man in his arms and comforts him, but Tony can tell he’s confused and partially exhausted from the trip. Tony tries to intervene, but he cannot – Steve stops him.

“Conor?” 

“Da?” Conor looks up and sees Steve for the first time. 

“It’s me, Conor. I’m here.” Of course, Steve reveals their one secret – the most important one – that Steve is not a Designate anymore.

“Da? It’s you? It’s really you? Not that-.” He swallows down his words. “You’re not a -.”

“No, not anymore,” Steve says.

Tony releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding. The rest of the party are not privy to the conversation or what’s going on, since they are blocked from the view. Tony and Steve are still in the doorway of the conference room, shutting it off from all other’s prying eyes Bucky pushes forward and eyes Tony. With one hand raised, Tony signals to Bucky to remain where he is..

Conor breaks into a gorgeous smile, grasps Steve by the shoulders, and says, “Da, you’re free, you’re free.”

“Yes, finally,” Steve says and Conor falls into his embrace again. Steve accepts it, and looks as if he almost cherishes it. 

Conor murmurs into Steve’s shoulder. “Finally, finally. You’re free. You’re my father. My real father. Finally.” He’s breaking down into tears now and all Steve can do is hold him up so he doesn’t collapse.

As Tony watches the smile on his face begins to fade. He knows Conor, he watched him grow up. He struggled with him every damned day of his young life. It can’t be this simple. It can’t be this easy. Something’s wrong. And then Conor looks up at Steve and there’s a hunger there, a man starving. Maybe it’s for the love he thought he could never have. Maybe it’s for the family he abandoned and finally came back to find. Maybe it’s for something else entirely.

Tony holds onto his sleeping grandson as Conor seizes Steve again, holding him in a possessive embrace as if letting go would end the world.


	5. Chapter 5

Tony knows it’s wrong. He shouldn’t intrude, but he doesn’t trust Conor. There’s no reason to trust him, but then he cycles back to Conor’s biology. He’s not inherently evil. He can’t be – he’s Steve’s son. He was only under the influence of Pierce for a short period of time How could that possibly make him into an evil incarnate? It can’t. Tony keeps telling himself these facts, but they get blurred out by the memories. Some people are naturally psychopaths or sociopaths. It is their brain chemistry. 

Extremis drops the definitions into Tony’s head.

Psy·cho·path (ˈsīkəˌpaTH) – a person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior.

So·ci·o·path (ˈsōsēōˌpaTH) - a person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience.

He could be a sociopath. Tony considers it, but then wipes it away. He has other things to do, other worries to concern him. One of the many things Tony has spent his time on the island doing is learning a little more about what happened before Project Rebirth. It hasn’t been easy and much of the work, the notebooks and information, is incomplete. He couldn’t even access the vast majority of it through Extremis because most of it happens to still be in hard copy. A few times over the last two decades, he traveled to Washington DC where the ruins of the Triskelion still sit as a stark reminder of what can happen when people trust in a man with a few emotionally driven slogans and a history of gaming the system. Pierce was that and a whole hell of a lot more. Tony went to the Triskelion, and through a little wheeling and dealing of his own, managed to get into the archives. 

Below the main building, behind the fuck rooms, Tony spent many hours of his time sifting through what he could find out about Project Rebirth and the Red Skull. He was there under the guise of trying to figure out more about the serum so that he could help Steve find his way back to them again, but he also searched for the back story of the serum because of Conor. There had to be a reason, a real reason, why Conor failed as a child. When Tony looked at Ava and Conor and compared the two, it didn’t seem possible they were the same, that they were siblings. Over the years he’d tried many things to understand Conor, but the one thing that haunted him had always been genetics. How could Steve spawn such a hate filled child? It didn’t seem possible. Nature or nurture they said –but what if it was neither?

What if it was the serum?

Returning to the Dome to find Conor invading his space again, Tony had to take a step back. But that didn’t mean he would leave Conor to his own devices. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to keep a very astute eye on the young man. So Tony tapped into the Dome’s surveillance system and routed in through Extremis. By doing this he could switch into a live feed anywhere in the Dome at any time – which essentially meant that he could find out what Conor was doing. He doesn’t admit it to anyone. 

As he sits in the control room, the main war room of the Dome where they planned the Triskelion’s downfall, Tony taps through the information on the serum and the first use of it on Red Skull. Internally he monitors Conor, but externally he keeps up the appearance of doing studies on the serum. At the very least he can use it as an excuse for his absenteeism. He skims through the data and there’s nothing here he hasn’t already looked at during his many visits to the wreckage of the Triskelion. That’s what he thinks until Bruce happens by and frowns at him.

“What’s this?” The holograph of the early super soldier serum float above Tony’s head.

“Just the serum, or an earlier version of it. I was wondering if Erskine made like a bio-organic delivery system to inject it into the germ cells without even knowing he did it,” Tony says and flicks through the fragmented notes they’ve been able to retrieve.

“Funny you should mention that,” Bruce says. His eyes are aged but nothing else. There’s a few white strands in his hair but he’s generally the same. “I’ve been doing quite a bit of work on the serum, trying to see if I could get mine to work with Extremis and this is what I found.” He leans in. “May I?” Indicating the virtual keyboard, he reaches for it. Tony gestures and agrees. Bruce keys in a few quick strokes. “What I noticed is that Erskine’s formula in the very beginning first targeted the most primitive portions of the brain.”

“The brain?”

“Yeah, while it did go to the major muscle groups like he intended, it also hit the amygdala. That’s the brain’s limbic system. It houses the control of basic emotions,” Bruce says as he captures an icon and then tosses it up into the space between them. The disc explodes with diagrams of the brain and more equations.

“Well, the serum did end up going to the brain – well, the serum that Steve has,” Tony notes as he flicks through the different anatomical representations of the inner core of the brain. He brings up the neural net just for shits and giggles to evaluate it once again. No need to show Bruce what he’s really digging for – not now anyhow. 

“Well, it did. Steve has an eidetic memory,” Bruce agrees. “But what’s so interesting with the first version of the serum is that it functioned as a reservoir.”

“A reservoir for what?” Tony asks. He’s half listening because Extremis is alerting him of Conor’s approach. 

“From what I can figure out it is a reservoir for a flight or fight response,” Bruce says. “But that’s too simple to really explain what it is. It is more like the difference between being a predator and being prey. The first version of the serum threw the balance to a predator kind of thinking. Very aggressive, very single minded.”

“Predator,” Tony mutters and tries to parse that with what he knows of Conor and his reactions and actions. “Bruce, do me a favor?”

“Yeah?”

“The DNA analyses of the kids, could you take a look at that again?” Tony asks as Extremis tells him that Conor will be in the central Dome in less than two minutes. 

Bruce considers him with a cocked eyebrow but says, “Anything I should be looking for?”

“Just the basics. Can you get me a lead on their mother?”

With a shrug, Bruce nods. “Sure, but we’ve been through this before. They don’t have the same mother.”

“Yeah well, that was kind of obvious from the start, wasn’t it,” Tony says and then shuts his month and wipes away the holographic display as Conor with Steve trailing him walks up the steps to the central Dome. “Just do it, please.”

Bruce agrees because it’s part of the whole puzzle they’ve been working on for ages. The serum, Extremis, and even the kids’ mothers. Bruce has been his confidant and science brother all the way through it. . On top of their own little projects, Bruce has been trying to find a way to use Extremis to fix his own problem. Bruce is probably the only other serum expert on the planet. Right now, Tony doesn’t have time for his little project. In fact, Conor heads straight for him.

He looks better, not great but not so pale and drawn. There’s a sprinkling of enthusiasm about him and his ashen features have some rosy health coming back to them. His hair still hangs in his eyes and his bones are like wires at all the wrong angles. Yet he seems pleased and happy – Tony finds himself smiling despite his reservations as his son approaches.

“Pops,” Conor says as he joins Tony at his small station within the core of the Dome. Something deep inside of Tony alarms. Perhaps there should be rules and protocols concerning who can access this most secure section of the Dome. 

He quells his fears and answers. “Conor, I see you and your Da are getting along.”

A quick look at Steve and Tony sees that he’s relaxed, calm, even less disoriented than he’s been these last few days. Steve smiles at Tony, but his gaze immediately glides over to Conor as if the young man was the center of the universe.

“We’re getting to know one another. I can’t believe some of the stories that Da and Uncle Buck tell. Did you know all about Red Skull – that he really had a red skull head. I thought that was all made up trash,” Conor says and grips his Da by the shoulder. He looks like any other young man full of excitement about meeting his idol. But Steve has never been Conor’s hero. 

It all feels like Tony’s stepped into a different reality, an alternate universe. Everything about it feels off, wrong. This is not the man that Tony watched in the feed talking to his People’s Progress. He feels like there are fire ants eating their way up his nerves. When he glances at Steve, all he can think is that he hasn’t had any time with him – nothing since he’s been awake, since the neural net finally released him. They’re more estranged now than they were before and Tony cannot believe he’s missing the moments when he could touch Steve, stroke his hair and whisper that things would get better. 

He looks down at the computer panel and nods. “Yeah, I remember the stories.” Steve never told him those stories – there never had been time. Their romance had been one on the fly, in the middle of danger. Maybe it wasn’t really there at all.

It’s Steve who drags him out of his morose reverie. “Conor and I are going to get something to eat, and I thought-.”

“We, Da, we,” Conor chimes in and smiles at Tony.

Something hard and harsh in Tony’s chest eases yet he doesn’t want to believe any of it. 

Steve smiles at his son and says, “We would really like you to join us.”

Tony eyes Bruce who only raises his hands and says, “I have some analyses to do. I’ll get back to you as soon as I know anything.” He slips away before Tony can protest. That leaves Tony confronting both Conor and Steve. Steve looks hopeful and somewhat oblivious to the threat – and that worries Tony. Just that thought brings Tony around. His need to protect Steve is strong but he also has to remember that Steve is not a hapless Designate anymore.

“Sure, why not?” Tony says and claps his hands. Tony notes that Conor’s reaction seems pleased and that set off the alarms in his head again. Did Tony just walk into Conor’s trap? Is there a trap at all? “Off to the mess?”

Steve shakes his head and laughs a little. “No, I fixed something in our room. I thought we could all go there, sit down, have a little quiet lunch together.”

“You fixed something?” Tony asks and it all seems so surreal to him. 

“Well, twenty odd years as a Designate did leave me with some know how,” Steve says and taps his temple. He’s smiling and Tony thinks he should be as well, but when he casts a glance at Conor he glimpses a shadow cross over his expression. Yet, it isn’t the disgust Tony expected, but a kind of raw anger. When Conor catches Tony staring at him, he forces a smile; it’s thin and edged. 

“It’d be nice,” Conor says and his long fingers work together in clasp as if he’s trying to calm his own jitters. Could Conor be worried? Frightened? It makes no sense.

Tony touches the computer console one more time before relenting and gesturing for the two of them to lead the way. “Let’s go.”

Conor’s smile eases. As they fall into a stroll toward their quarters, Tony tries to push aside the examiner, the analyst in his brain. Both Steve and Conor spend a lot of the walk surveying the place. Conor must remember most of it; he spent a great deal of his youth in the Dome. Steve hasn’t been back since Tony moved them to the island and the Dome itself has changed in many ways.

The Dome, constructed by Peggy Carter and financed by Howard Stark in secret and in defiance of the growing tyrannical State, sits in the middle of the outer territories. It’s close to where the ice road in Canada covers a lake that leads to the diamond mines. During its construction, Tony’s father spent time helping Peggy build the place and funneled money in her direction. He’d disappear weeks at a time and the State never knew what hit them. The Dome had been the perfect cover. Howard’s disappearance had always been explained by his hunt for Captain America’s frozen body. 

After the fall of the State, most of the governments of the Federated Union stand as free, loosely bound together in a federation for creating global trade, bolstering the economy, maintaining human rights, and supporting the environment. The Union is the epitome of what the United Nations once stood for but could never really be as a gutted institute with little sway or power over the participating states. There are quite a few nations that are not part of the Union. Some have opposing views on the Constitution, some wanted to go back to the way the world had been back before the rise of the State, some hold views akin to what the State had preached. 

With that thought, Tony glances over at Conor. The message had been clear when he was talking to people in the Grains. The words echo in Tony’s head - _I grew up in the Dome; I saw how the other half lives. I grew up in the fantasy, that we could live a free life without the State to take care of us. I grew up healthy and free. But then I saw, I saw the reality._ Was it what he saw? Did Conor have a conscience? Does he have one now? Was he born bad? Is that possible? 

It churns deep in Tony’s gut and then he looks to Steve who is talking to Conor, but Tony cannot parse the words. The noise around him, inside of his head, is just too loud, too distracting. 

“Tony? Tony?” It’s Steve and his face twists in concern. Tony jolts back to the moment and sees they’ve walked through the long corridors of the Dome. Once it had been more functional than beautiful. Corridors were more like underground passages with pipes and wires hanging or connected to the walls and ceilings. Now the corridors are hallways, renovated to look more like a governmental place. It might not be the center of the government anymore, but it still holds a very important role. He supposes the place has to look the part now. “Tony?”

“Sorry, sorry,” Tony says and offers a weak smile. “Just thinking about the history of this place.”

Conor tilts his head as if inquiring but he doesn’t comment on it. “Yeah, I remember when all of this looked like a glorified truck stop.” He grins and there’s something so reminiscent of Steve, it hits Tony hard. 

He changes the subject. “So what are we eating?” 

Steve directs them to the access hallway that leads to a series of new domes. These are the Quart-Domes, or the wing where all of the quarters reside now. It isn’t large because the number of people actually living in the Dome now happens to be fairly small, not like during the resistance and the war. Mainly the Dome houses scientists, technicians, and technologists that are supported by the different states within the Union. Many scientists are in residence, while some are on sabbatical from their different institutes. There are some governmental functions still situated at the Dome, particularly security but mainly it has been converted into a place that runs as an arm of the government and not the seat of government. 

Steve leads them to the quarters Tony’s family was assigned when they arrived. Since Tony moved the family to his island, there was no need to maintain a residence here. Ava had a small place but not one large enough to house all of them. Their new quarters is at the end of the hallway and it’s colder than Tony would like, though he understands that his family has a tendency to run hot due to the serum. When they enter the suite of rooms, he notices that Conor tugs his thick hoodie around his thin body but doesn’t say anything. Without a word, Steve goes to the thermostat and turns up the heat. Tony doesn’t mention it. The main room of the Quart-Dome is a small but functional living space that is open to a kitchen. There are various interfaces to the main web and other entertainment in the living room. The kitchen is stocked but it isn’t luxurious. It’s intended to be more of a dormitory style quarters nowadays than what some place people would live in long term. The more long term residences are in another wing. 

There’s a moment of melancholy when Tony realizes what he gave up when he moved his family to the island. He gave up a lot for his own mental health and he feels it every day. His brain feels rusted and corroded with disuse. Sometimes he thinks his brain is that old car bought for a song with every intention of restoring, but it just sits in the weather and ages even more. He’s still vital, but he’s not useful – not so much, not anymore.

“Come, I made some chili and fresh bread,” Steve says and they all gather around the small counter peninsula that separates the living space from the kitchen. There are stools tucked under it. Steve has a crock pot sitting on the opposite counter and Tony immediately smells the thick and spicy chili.

“You did not make this when we were on the island,” Tony says and sidles onto one of the stools. Steve shouldn’t serve him, but he’s practically pushing both Tony and Conor to settle down while he dishes out the food into bowls. 

“Well, this was an old recipe, I kind of recall from back in the day,” Steve says and it’s remarkable how normal he sounds – considering. Conor has his mouth agape, staring at Steve as if he’s watching a miracle. “Here you go.” He places the bowls with some spoons and napkins on the counter. “Let me get you the bread.”

He goes to the tiny oven. It’s more like a toaster oven and Tony has no idea how he managed to bake bread in it. With an oven mitt he pulls out a lovely loaf, sets it on the cutting board, and starts to slice it. 

“You don’t have to serve us, you know,” Tony says and he’s anxious to see Conor’s reaction. But the young man is only shoveling down the chili. 

“I know,” Steve says and it feels all out of character. But what is Steve’s character? Who is Steve Rogers? “I cooked for Ma when she was sick, right before she died. I learned a few things. How to bake bread was one of them.”

“I didn’t know my mother, not really,” Conor comments but keeps his head down.

“I know, and I’m sorry about that,” Tony replies. The pieces of their lives are jagged and sharp. “I wish I’d found out for you and Ava.”

“She doesn’t have the same mom.” Conor accepts the slice of bread and dips it into the chili. “I remember that much.”

“You remember?” Steve asks and there’s a glimmer of horror that shifts over his face. “What do you remember? You were young, very young.”

“Yeah, but I had the serum. I remember Pierce.” With the mention of Alexander Pierce, Steve swallows hard and looks away for a moment before refocusing on them. “I remember Ava being held by someone, a woman. I knew she wasn’t my mom. I knew that much.”

“But you didn’t know your mother?” Tony asks. He dug into their past. Every time he went to the Triskelion and rummaged through their old records. What he discovered only confounded the picture even more. Pierce and his cohorts seemed obsessed with corrupting the outcome of the serum. How to change Captain America, how to breed good little soldiers. What genetic markers meant the right outcome. In the end, Tony never uncovered the real nature of his children, only bits of data that didn’t compute. 

“I kind of remember her but not much. I know that Pierce told me I was different from Ava. Or the other kids-.”

“Other kids?” Steve looks positively green now. 

Tony scowls at Conor, but quickly jumps in. “There were no other children, Steve.”

Conor slurps some of his chili and says, “That we know of-.”

“What the hell? Why would you say that?” Tony snaps as he watches the play of emotions over Steve’s face. The man has been through quite enough. Even coming to the Dome and being quartered with Tony instead of with Bucky and his friends has left an impression on Steve. There’s so much that he missed and is still missing. He doesn’t need this bullshit and Tony calls Conor on it. “We have no evidence there were any other kids. None.”

Conor drops the spoon and, for a moment glares at Tony, but then raises his hands in surrender. “Like I said, that we know of. I don’t know anything more than you know. I just wonder what happened, you know. I’m allowed to know a little about my past. I’m sure Da would love to know a little more about his lost 25 years.”

Now both Conor and Steve staring at Tony like he has a time capsule somewhere that he can magically open up and reveal all the sorted crap that went on for the last two and a half decades. He does, in a way. Extremis houses all of this memories in detail. Tony doesn’t mean to but he snarls back at Conor, “Oh, are we going to talk about your selfishness or how you fucking tortured your father for shits and giggles?”

“Tony, no,” Steve says and reaches out as if to stop him. Tony only shrugs it off.

“No, no, I don’t know what his game is, but this is too much. He’s not like this. You want to see something about him? I can call up all kinds of data and information. God, just access the Dome’s web or JARVIS and you’ll see what he’s been up to for the last twenty odd years.” 

“Tony,” Steve says and there’s that furrow between his brows as he tries to figure out a proper answer. Tony knows he’s being unfair with Steve – overwhelming him. 

“Go ahead, Da. It’s all true. I was a shit,” Conor says. “I might still be a shit.” He looks pointedly at Tony. “But I’m trying to change. I’m trying to make the world a little better.”

Tony gulps down his response because he does not need to get into the whole shit show that Conor’s been up to in No Man’s Land, preaching about Designates and how people like Tony and the former Designates have Extremis while the rest of the population don’t have access to it. “The world a better place, huh?”

Steve interrupts the two of them. “Stop it, just stop.” He puts a hand to the back of his neck and for an instant, Tony fears he might be touching the neural net. Instead he just rubs his neck and shakes his head. “Listen, I don’t know what’s best. I don’t. I’m learning and I’m a pretty fast learner but not that fast. I feel like it’s been a hundred years and in some ways it has been that long, if you consider that as a Designate I really wasn’t me. I’m sorry to both of you.” He meets Tony’s gaze. “But neither of you know me, and I’m not the prize at a Coney Island midway. So you need to settle down and talk to me like a person and stop with the fighting.”

“We haven’t been fighting,” Tony mutters.

“Not talking and glowering at each other counts,” Steve says. He uses what Tony can only call the Captain America eye and then nods as if satisfied with cowing the both of them. He turns to the crock pot and scoops out some of the chili for himself. “If you don’t mind, I’d really like to get on with the idea of re-integrating into life. I can sit here and brood about the fact I slept in ice for 70 years and then was a slave for another 25, but I think I want to get on with living. If that’s okay with the two of you?”

Tony wants to take umbrage with the term slave, but he needs to give Steve some space. “Okay, for now.”

Conor side eyes him but only goes back to gobbling up the chili and tearing into the bread. After a moment, he asks, “So you remember any of it?” 

Tony wonders if Conor’s actually concerned with the idea that Steve might remember being tortured by him. 

“Some,” Steve says. He sits across from them at the counter. “I want to say I remember a lot of it, but some of it is only feelings and vague memories. I especially remember my time before it all happened, before the ice. I remember some of the training.” He stops at that and moves the chili around with his spoon. “But I don’t want to dwell on it. What’s the point? We won, right?”

“Yeah,” Tony says and he glimpses Conor agreeing. “And I would have done anything to get you free of that, you know it. Right?”

“Sure,” Steve says but part of the way he states it doesn’t convince Tony. He spots a shared understanding between Steve and Conor that sends chills down Tony’s spine. 

“You know I tried. I did.” Tony wants to access all of the data, all the times he went through the data. He can with Extremis but he’ll burn in hell before he does it in front of Conor. “I did. I can show you all of my logs.”

Steve finishes up his chili. “I believe you, Tony. Now, eat.” 

It’s nice, the chili, the idea of being with Steve – with his family. But nothing about this feels normal – or right. He shoves the bowl away. “Listen, I know it’s uncomfortable for you. You don’t really know me, but I’ve been with you for a quarter of a century. I tried to do the right thing.” He focuses on Conor. “Somehow I failed you and I’m sorry. I don’t know how.”

Conor considers him and there’s something more than ice in those blue eyes. Is it a cold fire, a fury brewing, or is it hunger for something to hold onto – Tony doesn’t know. “You expected me to be something I wasn’t.”

“I’m not sure what that means,” Tony says and a weight lays on his chest. It hurts to breathe.

“You ever consider the fact that I am not my Da?”

Tony glances between the two and doesn’t understand.

“You expected me to be some Captain America. I’m not. What am I? What’s Ava? We’re the product of what happened to our Da. You get that right? You get that we’re the product of enslavement and abuse.” He’s deadly serious. For a moment, he reminds Tony of a college student – a graduate student arguing the value of some esoteric point. 

“Yes, I know that, Conor. I tried to make you both understand that you are better than that. Ava understood it. I can’t get why you don’t.” 

“Ava isn’t me.”

It’s all about that – isn’t it? Conor doesn’t want to be Steve nor does he want to be Ava. He wants to forge his own name, his own way. “If you had stayed, what would you have become here?”

Conor straightens his shoulders as a confidence comes over him, but at the same time his cheeks redden. “I’m kind of pretty good with technical stuff, actually.”

“Technical? You mean mechanics?”

“Something like,” he pauses and looks at his father before adding, “I dissected a neural net. I figured out some of the coding and how it links up to the neurons and stuff.”

“Dissected?” Tony says and now not only are alarms screeching in his head but it’s a three alarm fire. “You dissected someone’s head?”

Conor scoffs. “I should have known you would go there. Of course, you would think the worst of me. I did some pretty bad stuff as a teenager, and I get that. But shit, I am not that person anymore. I dissected a neural net. I didn’t say I dissected someone’s head.”

Steve frowns at Tony. He has to concede because he did do exactly what Conor said. “Okay, I admit. It sounded pretty awful.” He tries again. “You studied the neural net?”

“Yeah, connected it up to some computer programming. Learned a lot about it. It’s pretty rudimentary but it definitely has artificial intelligence characteristics. I mean you could, if you wanted to, engage its automaton function. I think that’s what happened with Da.”

“Automaton function?” Tony grimaces. “I didn’t realize it operated like that.” How could he have missed that and why didn’t Maria Hill say anything about it? She’s long retired, but he’ll need to go and find her and talk with her about it. She’s the closest expert they have on how the State operated. “How’d you figure that all out?”

“I’m not a heathen, Pops. Once I left I traveled a lot. Got to know people. Learned stuff.”

“People as in the People’s Progress?” Tony asks and he knows it’s a loaded question. Steve shifts on his stool. He’s obviously a little lost and a little bit more than frustrated with the two of them. 

“Okay, you got me. I’ve been talking a lot about it with a lot of concerned people. Yeah, it’s not a good thing-.” 

Tony stops him. “You’ve been accusing me of having a slave and keeping Extremis for myself and Designates. You’re accusing me of setting up an oligarchy.”

Surprisingly, Conor doesn’t take the bait. “Yeah, I did. I admit it. I was angry with you, I still am. I still think what you did with Extremis is wrong. I think you’re going to pay for it, one way or another-.”

“And you’re the one to make me pay?”

Steve jumps in. “Tony, don’t-.”

“No Da, it’s okay. Really it is.” He turns fully toward Tony, leaving his nearly empty bowl and crust of bread on the counter forgotten. “I get it. I called you out and I made it known. People are pissed, Pops, they are. You are sitting up here in your ivory tower and what’s left for the rest of us?”

“Conor, you know that Tony used Extremis to free the Designates,” Steve says as he tries to defuse the situation. 

“Sure he did. He also used it to save Aunt Pepper. Don’t get me wrong. I would have been devastated to see Aunt Pepper dead, but who are you to decide?” Conor chuckles deep in his throat. “Look at you, Pops. Really look at yourself. You’re not changing at all. Are you even aging? Are you immortal? How can I get some of that silly juice, because the serum in my veins has gone bad. It isn’t working anymore. There’s something wrong with it. Can you save me?”

“Conor, I-.” Tony swallows down the rising fear. He’s suspected, they all suspected something was wrong with Conor, something was off with the serum. It is clear just by looking at him. The serum in Conor was corrupted – somehow. The shock and horror he feels shouldn’t be surprising. It still is. He shouldn’t feel this way, this need to protect the boy he raised, because that boy – the man before him – happens to be – and he cannot name it. What is Conor? A psychopath? A criminal? Or maybe it’s been the serum all along. Something wrong with the serum or the mix of his genetics and the serum. It chills Tony to think about it. “I don’t know, Conor, I didn’t kno-.”

“You knew enough. Look at what you’ve created here. A conclave, a privileged world of people who aren’t aging, maybe immortal. How are people like me supposed to look at it? I’m sorry, Pops, but what’s going on here has to be addressed.” Conor stands up. He’s not threatening, but he takes off his jacket. “Look at me. Do I look like the serum is working? Can you save me? Should you, knowing who I am, what I’ve done to my own father, the man you love. Would you save me?”

The little chili he ate turns over in his gut. It congeals like a cold lump but also with barbs to pierce him through. That’s what Conor has done all his life, split Tony into pieces. He loves the boy but at the same time – he admits – hates him. Steve intercedes though and answers for both of them. “We’d do anything for you.”

Conor shakes his head. “Steve Rogers to the last, right? Do you even remember what I did to you? Do you think something’s wrong with me? Well, there is, there’s something so wrong with me-.” He stops and there’s a shudder that runs through his body. 

“Conor, I-.” Steve starts and then bows his head. “I don’t know what to say. Some of the things you’re talking about, some of them I remember. Most I don’t. I have to admit, if they’re as bad as you’re saying I don’t know if I want to remember. But what’s important now is that you’re here. And we want to help you, if you’re sick.”

“And my crimes. What about my crimes?” Conor asks and he’s not looking at Steve but at Tony. “Tell me, what will you do about those?”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Tony says. “What you did to your father? Or what you’re doing now in No Man’s Land?”

This time there’s no humility or humbleness just a cool confidence that sends chills down Tony’s spine. “Maybe, maybe both? What do you think? Maybe the serum’s failing because I’m inherently evil? But how could that happen, since I’m the son of Steve Rogers?” 

“You say it like it’s a curse,” Tony spits back and he should just stop this, walk out of the door, but he cannot because Steve’s there and something in his gut, churning and sharp, tells him to stay put and not leave this little bastard alone with Steve.

“Stop,” Steve says and his voice reverberates in the room. He grips the counter between them for a moment and then glares at both of them. “Stop both of you. This is getting us nowhere.” He stops and swallows audibly. Releasing the counter he heaves in a breath and blinks a few times. “Conor, if you’re sick, we will deal with it. Tony, I understand your hesitation, but I’m asking you to give him, give us all, some room. I don’t know this world. I don’t know if I ever did.” He licks at his lips and scans the room as if he’s searching for something. “Neither of you are going to win me over with this type of attitude. I think it’s time for a break. I’m going to go and see Bu-.” He freezes, and then puts a hand up to his temple.

Both Conor and Tony watch for a second, but it’s Tony that recognizes it. “Shit, no.” He rushes around the counter but he’s too late as Steve crumples before them, his body trembling into a full seizure. Conor makes a horrified noise and joins Tony. With his arm, Tony blocks Steve’s son. 

“What? He’s my father,” Conor chokes out and Tony teeters as emotion batter him. He wants to strike out, he wants to yell and scream, he wants to reprimand and goad Conor into a full battle, but he forces himself to concentrate on what’s important.

“No, give him room,” Tony says and crouches down on the small kitchen. The tiles are cold to the touch and Tony cringes as he watches Steve’s entire body arch and go rigid in the seizure. These aren’t just epileptic episodes but more like periods of explosive traumatic brain injury as the serum and the neural net battle it out in Steve’s brain for control. Steve’s making tiny noises, little _nnnnh_ sounds and his jaw clenches as spittle runs out of the corner of his mouth.

“Why aren’t you doing something? You used to do something,” Conor says and Tony flashes him a look.

“That’s when I knew what to do. He’s not controlled by the net anymore. Anything I could do might tip the balance the wrong way-.”

“Won’t this tip it the wrong way?” 

Even as Tony tries to comfort Steve with a tender hand against his tense arced shoulders, he glimpses both the terror and the fascination in Conor’s expression. “This isn’t anything to be excited about, you know.”

Conor strips his features of any reaction and then his eyes turn dark. “I’m worried, not excited, but thanks for thinking the worst of me. You don’t know me. Stop pretending you do.”

Tony’s about to retort, but the tension leaves Steve and he melts to the floor. His eyes are closed and his mouth slightly agape. Tony rolls him into the recovery position and then says (out loud mainly for Conor’s benefit), “JARVIS, call up emergency medical. Get in touch with Bruce and Betty, if she’s around. We need to bring Steve to the medical bay.”

JARVIS replies with a quick assent through Extremis that the medical staff have already been alerted. As he kneels next to Steve, Tony realizes he doesn’t know what to do. He has no clue. When Steve would suffer seizures while under the control of the neural net, he would connect him back up to the pod. The pod would normalize all functions again and reconnect Steve up to the private Designate Web Tony had installed on the island.

Conor seems to read his mind. “Are you gonna get him connected up? Maybe he needs to be in the pod?”

Even though the thought flittered across Tony’s own mind, he doesn’t trust it coming from Conor. Plus, putting Steve back in the pod, any pod, might tip the balance, just as he said. “No, we have to have Bruce assess Steve’s state.” He reaches for the buttoned shirt. “Come on, loosen his clothes. Help me out.”

Conor eyes him as if trying to figure out Tony’s motive, but he decides to help and in seconds, they have Steve’s collar opened and his belt off. As they work, Steve’s eyes do open but there’s a glassy look to them and they keep rolling back in his head. Tony tries to talk softly to him all the while astutely aware that Conor’s watching him. 

“Steve, Steve can you hear me? It’s okay, love, I have you. We’re right here.” He runs a hand through Steve’s hair and sees that his eyes keeping trying to open but he’s failing. “Just sleep. It’s okay.”

Steve opens and closes his mouth several times but there’s not much purposeful movement. There’s a knock on the door and Conor jerks a little as if surprised or scared.

“It’s medical. Let them in,” Tony says because he’s not ready to deal with Conor’s trauma right now. Conor jumps up and crosses the small living room of their suite and opens the door. Bruce hurries in along with a gurney and two members of his medical team. “A seizure. I don’t know why.”

“Is he responding at all?” Bruce says as he kneels next to Tony on the kitchen tiles. 

“No,” Conor says and there’s glint in his eyes. Is it exhilaration or fear? Tony tries not to question it, but there’s something slightly disturbing about his expression. It’s wrecked, ruined, but also too hyperaware. 

“Okay, let’s get him to medical and we can run some scans.”

“JARVIS has already run some, and I’m having the data dumped to the medical center’s console,” Tony says as Extremis feeds him the data stream. 

“Any clear ideas about why?” Bruce says as he backs up to allow the medical team access. They gently pick up Steve and get him onto the gurney. It floats only centimeters off the floor and then once Steve has been secured on it, the paramedic touches the side bar and it lifts into the air. “How long did the seizure last?”

“About 30 seconds,” Conor answers and Tony nods. 

“Thirty seconds to a minute tops,” Tony adds. 

“Okay,” Bruce says and turns back to Steve. “We’re going to take you to the medical center and get you comfortable.”

The medic is wrapping Steve in a blanket and he shivers in response. His focus drifts over to Tony and, for a long moment, there’s something searing about his gaze. Before Tony can react he closes his eyes and nods.

“That’s good,” Bruce says. “He’s responding. Let’s get moving.”

It takes a moment for Tony to actually get his muscles to respond, or maybe it’s just that he can’t even think about moving at all. He’s losing this. He’s losing the war. For twenty-five years he’s been fighting, but the fact remains that he’s been struggling for a dream – one that even Steve understands is just that. Neither of them know one another, not really, not anymore. Who he knew of Steve, back during the resistance, is a whole different person. He needs to let things go. He glances around the Quart-Dome he’d been assigned with his family, including Steve. But the fact remains that Steve felt uncomfortable here with him. They didn’t even sleep together, not really. Steve ended up falling asleep on the couch the last few nights. 

“I have to let him go,” he whispers.

It’s only then he grasps that Conor is still standing next to him. “Sometimes you have to walk away from things. It gives you perspective.” 

Tony turns but doesn’t fully face Conor. He just inspects him in profile. “Is that what you got when you left? A new perspective?” 

“That, and something more valuable,” Conor says and he fully faces Tony. “I got to understand myself. Maybe you should think about it. For the last twenty-five years you’ve been wrapped up with him. I don’t even know who you are, not really. Not even when I lived with you. You are just him in shadow.”

He knows he should be angry. Every fiber wants to lash out at Conor, but instead, he quells the raging fire inside and says, “I gotta go.”

There’s a singularity about his thoughts as he marches through the hallways to the main thoroughfare of the Dome. He heads towards the med center and doesn’t allow himself to think. He can’t think. If he does everything will cascade down on top of him and he’ll have to deal with the consequences. He’s tired of calculating all the possibilities and potentials. He’s tired of trying to balance out his life and he doesn’t want to fucking admit that Conor is right. His life has been swallowed up by this obsession, by his guilt and his need to help Steve. 

He finds himself at the entrance to the med center and the activity jolts him out of his thoughts, the repetition of the hell inside. The med center is everything he expected. It’s been updated since the last time he visited, which was only a few months ago when Ava had been injured on a mission. He remembers when he first arrived after Ava had been wounded, he didn’t even see his surroundings. Everything around him looked like a hive.

Now, the busyness around him buzzes but it doesn’t dissuade or intimidate him like it had when he arrived to find that his daughter had taken a hit as Iron Maiden. He’d spent those hours as he waited and watched her upgrading her armor, though she’d not been back in it since that time. She’d spent her time recovering on the island. Now, he walks through the medical suite with its triage bay and imaging rooms. He passes by the nurses’ station and goes straight to the privacy bay. There are a few other patients in the bay, mainly being treated for broken bones or twisted joints. 

Toward the end of the bay there’s a room and Tony suspects that’s where they have Steve so he maneuvers around carts and busy nurses to the open door. He steps inside to see that Steve is resting in the bed and both Bruce and Betty are leaning over the bed.

Betty is speaking. “I know you’re tired but we need you to answer a few questions.”

Steve blinks his eyes and rolls his head to the side on the pile of pillows. His expression is lost and hunting, like he’s looking for something or someone. 

“Can you do that?” Betty asks. “Can you answer a few questions?”

Tony doesn’t step any further into the room. It’s only dimly lit and he’s grateful for that since Steve usually doesn’t like it to be in a too bright room after a neural net induced seizure. 

“Yeah,” Steve says and even the single word sounds thick in his throat.

“What’s your name?”

Tony bites back his fears and holds his hands in fists as he waits for the answer. 

Steve turns to face Betty and there’s a hesitation before he replies in a rasping voice, “Steve, Steve Rogers.”

“Good,” Betty says with a soft smile. She glances up and waves for Tony to come into the room. This is another test. He knows it, and he drags his feet and his heart as he joins them at the bed. The machines beep and spew out information but Tony ignores them as he focuses on Steve. Betty asks, “Who is this?”

For a long moment Steve concentrates on Tony, and his eyes look tired, bleary with the after effects of the seizure. “Tony.” A big smile crosses his face. “I remember. I think I might love him.”

Something so tightly held inside of Tony breaks open and, if Bruce hadn’t been standing right next to him and braced him, Tony would have collapsed onto the floor. His whole body vibrates and he trembles but Bruce holds him firmly. Tony reaches out, and suddenly he feels Steve’s hand in his hand. It’s warm, a little too clammy, but it feels like an anchor, a mooring to keep him steady. 

“Hey,” Tony says and it’s inadequate and stupid, but there’s been too much between them – the years, the pain. It’s piled up and heaped over them not like a cloud but an avalanche of rocks to bury them. Tony only has eyes for him, but the weariness over takes his love and even as Steve tries to keep alert he fails. “It’s okay. You can rest.”

Steve murmurs, “Don’t leave.” But doesn’t finish as he drifts off. 

“He’s doing well. Responding to the questions,” Betty says. 

Looking up Tony smiles at Betty. “He’s okay? The neural net isn’t-.”

Betty presses her lips into a tight line before she answers, “We can’t make that conclusion just yet.”

“We need to do an assessment of the implant. While he’s sleeping we can do the hook up and scan.”

Tony shakes his head. “No, no, no. Absolutely not. You cannot hook him up again. Not after this. We don’t know what happened, how it happened.” He brushes his fingers along the back of Steve’s hand. 

“Pops.” He finds Ava standing at the entrance to the room. She enters the room and comes directly to Tony. She offers him a quick hug and then turns to check on her Da. “Is he all right?” She’s asking Betty and Bruce but Tony is the one to answer.

“He remembered more.”

“More?”

Tony cannot express the meaning behind the words he just heard Steve utter, so he bites at his lips and smiles. “It was all good.”

She beams at him. “That’s good. Why the glum look? I understand the seizure issue, but it’s something more, isn’t it?”

Betty jumps in and explains, “We need to assess the Captain’s state, especially the activity of the neural net. The best way to do that is through a hook up.”

“To a pod,” Tony finishes.

Ava furrows her brow, a look reminiscent of her father even with her long dark hair. “Well, Pops, you connected Da up afterward, right? We should be okay.”

“Yeah, yeah I did. But it’s been a while since he came back. We can’t truly know what hooking him up will do to the status of the neural net.” Tony replies.

It’s Bruce’s turn to try and convince him. “Tony, the only way we can figure out what’s going on is through the implant. You know that. I understand your reservations, but you know that we have to do this.”

“Have to do what?”

Conor.

Shit. Tony just wants the variable, the unpredictable variable of Conor, to get out of his way. He doesn’t turn around to greet him but Ava does. She steps away from Tony, from her Da and addresses her brother. “Connie-.”

“You know I hate it when you call me that,” he mutters but there’s a playful tone in his voice, one that was a rare and precious thing so many years ago.

She chuckles. “That’s why I use it, Connie. Da had a seizure.”

“Yeah, I know, I was there.” 

Ava glances at Tony but he stays mute. He keeps his eyes fixed on Steve. He can see the shuffling of Betty and Bruce as they try to deal with the dynamics of his broken family. He refuses to look up. He should. It isn’t like he’s actively fighting Conor right now. He just doesn’t have the wherewithal to withstand that scowl and disapproval on Conor’s face. Right now, Tony feels like a fucking teenager. 

“So, Doctor Ross and Doctor Banner need to check out the implant. They need to put Da in the pod-.”

“Not in the pod. We have a mobile device,” Betty says but Conor interrupts her.

“What the hell? The first chance you get you’re sticking him back in there. Doesn’t he have any agency at all? Did you even fucking ask him?”

Everyone drops to silence and Tony swears he can hear Bruce count his heart beats to calm himself down. It’s Ava who confront Conor. She nods as she answers, “You’re right. We should ask him.” She peers over her shoulder at Bruce to ask him. “Do you think it would be okay to wait until he wakes up?”

Bruce raises a brow at Betty. Though she’s no longer a young woman, she holds a certain quiet beauty still. She purses her lips and assents. “I think that’s a good idea. We’ll tell him what we need and then we will ask him. Thank you, Conor, for reminding me.”

Conor settles almost immediately, though when he meets Tony’s gaze there’s anger and a fierce burning rage. Tony doesn’t shy away but only grimaces as Conor steps up to his father’s bed. “Is he going to be okay?”

“He seemed to remember more,” Tony says and for some reason his mouth is dry. He feels his skin prickle with anxiety. “A little more.”

Betty and Bruce move to leave and Tony wants to follow him, wants to know exactly their evaluation of Steve, but instead he finds himself planted in place, responding to Conor, and strangely hooked on the mystery of Conor. 

“A little more?” Conor smiles. “You think the neural net is dead?”

“It’s not interacting with the claustrum of the brain. Not when I checked last,” Tony says. Conor squeezes up his face in response. “I’ve been mapping the interface of the neural net with your Da’s brain. Don’t look at me like I’m Doctor Frankenstein. How the hell else was I supposed to find a way to bring him back?”

Conor raises both of his hands in surrender again. It’s like a gesture he uses to quiet people into submission – and Tony hates it. “Hey, I didn’t say anything. Just want to know.”

“Go on, Pops,” Ava says and she frowns at both of them.

“The neural net has a direct link to the claustrum. That’s the brain’s center for consciousness. That direct connection controls your Da’s consciousness. What I found is that the neural net’s activity has slowly decreased in the last ten years. What happened today – I’m not sure. It might be just an anomaly, or the core of the neural net might be trying to reboot.” Tony folds his arms around his chest, holding tight. 

“I thought the net was dead,” Ava asks as Conor stays too silent, too contemplative. 

“Not dead. Not really. At least, not in my mind. I think of it as in stasis.”

“So Da’s serum… It actually has to fight against it all the time,” Conor concludes. 

It isn’t a bad assumption, but it is fairly naïve. “Something like that but a little more complex. Since I’m not one hundred percent sure how the serum managed to finally shut down the implant. I also can’t say it’s not functional.”

“I thought it was dead,” Ava murmurs and there’s a tremor in her voice. Her eyes are on her father now and there’s never been a moment until now that Tony felt estranged from her. “I wanted it to be dead.”

“Honey, don’t-.” 

Even as he tries to comfort her, it’s Conor who slips an arm around her and clasps her shoulder. “Pops, he’s got this under control.” His words are tender, soft, gentle. Something that Tony found wanting in him through the years. Has he misjudged the youth and so pre-judged the man? The memory of Steve hanging in cruciform returns and Conor using him as target practice. How could this be the same person? “Right, Pops, you can do this. Right?”

Tony clears his throat and nods several times. “I’ll – I’ll study it. We’ll figure it out once your Da wakes up.”

Ava smiles and then looks up to Conor – he’s tall, taller than her now. It isn’t something that Tony actually noticed before. Conor has Steve’s height, and the width of his shoulder, plus the vibrant blue eyes. What he doesn’t have is the strength. 

“And you,” Tony offers and Conor’s attention goes rigid. He approaches the subject tentatively. “I could, if you want, run a few tests. Figure out what’s happening with your serum. Betty, she’s the best. So is Helen Cho. She’s around here somewhere-.”

“Later, Pops. Right now, let’s make sure Da is okay.” When the hell did Conor change? He swears he only just saw a news report on his People’s Progress band and what’s going on in No Man’s Land. Conor seems to read his mind. “People change, Pops. I’m trying.”

Tony doesn’t respond. They all stand in silence that is heavy and pressing on them. The silence is only interrupted by the occasional beep of the monitors scanning Steve for his vitals. Tony could patch in at any time using Extremis, but he doesn’t. He stays apart until both Ava and Conor decide it might be time to go check on Steven. He bids them goodbye and Ava kisses his cheek before they depart. 

Eventually, he pulls up a chair and settles in. He has work to do and accesses Extremis to try and gather some more data, especially on Conor. He has JARVIS go through the last ten years and find all of his movements since the time he left the Dome and beyond. It will take a while to get all of the information since the world was rebuilt from the oppression of the State in decidedly lopsided in ways. Some areas are more advanced than others. JARVIS notes that most of the movements gleaned in the early sweep show that Conor was aware of this fact and kept to technologically depressed areas. Tony has JARVIS access personal data sites and pull whatever the AI can get from different media sites. One of the things the State sanctified was social media sites – sites to keep the masses happy and disengaged. A modern day gladiator ring to keep people occupied while the foxes were in the hen house.

By the time Tony’s gone through the easiest access data on Conor’s movements, he finds no answers to understand the man. Clearly his son has been dealing with the underbelly, the remnants of Hydra yet at the same time he’s aligned himself with the most disenfranchised – those people who the State forgot and those people the Union has asked for their trust but not given a reason to trust. Extremis layered on top of that has only just incited their rage. It isn’t a good thing, and Tony can only guess Conor’s motives. They cannot be good, not by a long shot. But what is the reason he came here? 

He seems fixated on Steve, on his Da. But that’s not really true. Maybe it is only Tony’s perception that Conor is focused on Steve. Maybe he’s getting ahead of himself and seeing correlations where there aren’t any. He asks Extremis to double check his conclusions. And it’s laid bare. He is seeing false associations. He leans back and covers his face with his hand, rubbing at his eyes.

“I thought I was the one that’s supposed to feel cruddy.”

Tony drops his hand to see Steve blinking awake. It’s only been a handful of hours. “Hey, you can sleep some more.”

“So can you,” Steve says and licks his lips.

“You need some water?” 

Steve only nods. 

Crossing over to the small tray table with the pitcher and plastic cup, Tony checks the water. It’s lukewarm. “Let me get some ice.” He leaves without a comment from Steve and easily finds the ice machine. The activity of the medical center lulls because it is getting later in the day. He catches the smell of some nurse’s dinner in the air and his stomach protests, but he ignores it. Adding ice to the pitcher, Tony fills it with some cold water as well and then returns to Steve’s bedside. He’s still awake and sitting up straighter, more alert.

“Here you go,” Tony says and pours a cup of water.

Steve accept it and drinks. “How bad was it?” He puts the cup on the tray table Tony wheeled over to the side of the bed.

“Not bad. We haven’t checked out the neural net yet to see if it is more active or not. But all indications are that you’re still in control.”

Steve frowns and fingers the grayish blue cup. He stares at it as he says, “I know this is hard for you. I understand it. The fact that I’m back and I’m barely remembering our time together – it must be difficult.”

“But you remembered something,” Tony says and he knows he’s only throwing himself a life preserver. He’s hanging on to a life he thought he was building all these years he’d been in waiting.

Steve softens his expression and his eyes are kind and inviting. “Yeah, Tony, I remembered some of our time together before – before everything. I remembered the feelings more than anything. It seems a lot of things are coming back in steps.”

“That’s good right?” Tony wants it to be good. He begs for it to be good. But the words of Ava, of Pepper, of Rhodey, of god damned Conor ring in his head – he’s been waiting for so long for a dream that is just that – a fantasy. 

“It’s good, I think,” Steve says and that furrow between his brows appears again. “But I don’t understand something.”

“Yeah?” Tony tries to ignore how hard, how rapid, how painful his heart feels in his chest next to his arc reactor.

“Why? I might be a little fuzzy on all the details,” Steve says and presses his fingers to his forehead for a moment. When he drops his hand, his expression implores Tony for more than he knows he’s able to give. “You made a promise, but you didn’t live your life. That’s not what I wanted for you.” He hisses at something internal. “I wouldn’t want you to have waited for me, not all of these years.”

“No worries, right? I had Extremis. You, you aged a bit but not as much as you would have. The serum had been working to save you eventually, right? Even with the suppressants we gave you.” Tony scrambles for reasons, because he only has the one and it seems meaningless now – now that he realizes he doesn’t really know the man lying in the bed. Not really, not anymore.

“But all those years, Tony, all those years you lost,” Steve says. “Bucky told me how dedicated you were. It isn’t right. You shouldn’t have.”

“I did. I wanted to,” Tony replies and something edges toward the forefront. Something sharp cuts through him. “Stop, okay? Stop. Everyone keeps telling me what I should or shouldn’t have been doing all these years. I had freewill. I did. I decided to take care of my family, to take care of you.”

“Did you have freewill? Really?” Steve asks.

“Shit, you know this is like asking anyone with a family member who needs care to stop. No, it doesn’t work that way. I loved you. I love you still. Why can’t anyone see that?” He cannot believe he’s actually debating freewill with Steve. “You get how ridiculous this is. You didn’t have freewill for twenty-five years and you’re sitting here after a fucking seizure arguing with me about my freewill.”

Steve cocks his brow and says, “Ironic isn’t it?” He huffs out a laugh and then pushes back into the pillows. “I’m tired.”

He thinks that’s his invitation to leave, so he brushes his hands on his jeans. “You want any more water before I leave?”

“No, I’m good. Thank you,” Steve says and it’s dismissive like an arrow shot to his gut. He gulps down the pain and with a quick nod leaves the hospital room. 

Before he knows it, he’s traversed the way to his console in the main Dome. He’s sequestered off and hidden by the boards and screens. Everything, every memory, every event of the last few weeks pounds into his head and he weighs whether or not to access Extremis and just shut it all down in his head. It’s too much. He should check on his data, and find out more about where exactly Conor has been in the last ten years. What he’s done, who his associates are. On top of reviewing Conor’s movements, Tony accesses the base’s surveillance and calls up information on what Conor is doing at the base.

No activity that he’s occupied himself withportent danger. He hangs around Ava, plays with Steven. He seems to have a preference for Barnes. Tony shuffles through the gathered information and recordings to find out what the hell they have to talk about. Tony analyzes what JARVIS brings up on Conor’s previous movements. He notes that the People’s Progress is gaining power and prestige in some of the more downtrodden places. From his perspective, it looks ugly and someone should be taking account of it. Of course the Union should be addressing it, but there’s little evidence that anyone in the top echelons is paying attention. 

He needs to talk to Coulson who is very involved with running the government of the Union. He needs to find out what are the parliament’s plans to deal with upheavals and the People’s Progress. Tony has to admit: Conor has a point. Here at the Dome, they are dissociated with the larger picture of the Union, the reconstruction, and the past. The Dome may have lodged many of the people who ended up on the side of the resistance during the reign of the State. But now it is a sanctuary for scientsits and technicians. Though few of the people who used to be at the Dome did transition to establishing a government, Coulson amongst them, not many of Tony’s close ties did. Pepper had been a stateswoman, helping to weave the tattered remains together, but she didn’t stay in the forefront of the government. Once she’d gotten sick, she resigned. She receded like many of them, and now Tony wonders if that was a mistake. The Union doesn’t have a Capital as the old nation states once did. Each geographical area has a Capital that reports to the Union, and the Union took over the United Nations building. If anything is the Capital of the Union, it is probably the UN. Catching up on the outside world is difficult. He’s been holed up on beautiful island, concerned with his own life and his own problems for too long. But it seems like the two are about to clash – the outside world and that of his family. So he takes to solving the problem, like he always does. That is what he does.

He doesn’t remember if he sleeps or eats or anything. He stays hidden and away from anything he might need to deal with in the next few hours. While he’s essentially brooding and sinking deeper into his own depression, Ava, Sam, and Clint get called out on a Hydra issue. Barnes decides to stay behind because of Steve’s health. Of course, Tony dismisses all of his current work to watch the mission. He calls upon Extremis to patch him through and Ava immediately scowls her disapproval over the comm.

“Really, Pops, I’ve been doing this for years.”

“Don’t care. If you want me back in the saddle here in the Dome for world security, then I get to fly along,” Tony replies as he watches the HUD readout in real time. 

“Then why aren’t you in the suit?” Ava retorts but it is playful and teasing.

“Keep your head in the game people,” Clint chimes in over the comms. He’s flying a Quin Jet with Sam along for the ride. Since the weather is fairly nasty outside of the Dome, Sam hangs tight with Clint until they’re ready to drop in on their targets.

They’ve been in the air for over 20 minutes and are due in range within the next 15 minutes. “What’s the assignment?”

Ava chuckles, “Pops, you shouldn’t even be on the line. This is classified.”

“Rogue, No Man’s Land, Deadlands?” He shifts through the streams of data on her HUD and she mutters a few curses. 

“Please, Pops, you’re blinding me.” 

He identifies the irritation in her voice but he can’t stop because he spots the target. “Shit, you are going after something in the breadbasket? What the hell?”

“It’s a Hydra stronghold. We have to clear them out, regardless of whether or not it’s inside the Union.”

He’s still concentrating on the information that links the conclave they’re zeroing in on to Hydra, when Clint announces, “We have the target within the scopes. Falcon is in the air.”

As Ava streaks toward the small but poorly hidden settlement on the plains of Kansas, Tony switches view points to the internal sensors of the Jet. With the Jet’s scanners, Tony can get a full blanketed survey of the area. It’s early morning, nearly dawn. The plains are dry and dusty with a sickly yellow ochre about the place. It reminds Tony of tales of the Dust Bowl. He cross references the weather information and sees that this part of the country has been suffering through a drought for the last few weeks. It isn’t anything serious but it is ugly enough that the ground’s cracked and veined from the lack of moisture. 

“What marks this as Hydra?”

“Intel,” Sam says.

Tony’s not so sure but he’s not there and he doesn’t have any chips in the game so he sits back and watches from a far. It’s so predictable, he gets sick over it. At first it’s clear and obvious that the place is a Hydra stronghold, that there are guns and equipment and foot soldiers. But then as Ava and Falcon make their passes, aiming at the soldiers, Tony spots other signs – signs that aren’t about Hydra at all. It takes an astute eye and a lot of data crunching on the fly to figure it out because of how well dressed and camouflaged it is. Yet, Tony sees it and his stomach flips over and he yells through the comm link.

“Abort, abort.”

“What?” 

But it’s too late the missiles from Ava hit their targets and the place is on fire before they spot it as well. It’s a simple sign, off to the side, leaning against a nearly dead tree. One might have thought it was a tangle of dried dead limbs, but one would have been wrong. In fact, it is a tricycle. 

A tricycle. A child’s bike.

As the bombs explode around them, the tiny huts empty out and people – children and seniors flood out into the open screaming in horror as Iron Maiden and Falcon speed through the air. 

“Fuck, they’re using civilians as shields,” Ava curses but then Falcon replies.

“There’s only the one target. There’s only the one weapons storage.” 

Clint swerves the jet, bringing it low against the yellowed plains. Who knows if it was even Hydra? The weapons cache is small, and the number of soldiers could be a small band of Hydra or it could be a local militia. Since the fall of the State there are still areas unpoliced like the old Wild West. Several of the children scatter into the open fields of dying cornstalks. Piloting the Quin Jet, Clint says, “We need to set down and find out if there are any casualties.”

“Let me do it,” Ava says and her tone is stricken, thick with emotion. “I fired the first shot.” 

With a simple thought, Tony’s consciousness jumps from the Quin Jet to inside the HUD. “I’m here.”

“You don’t have to be,” Ava says but she doesn’t force him out of the way. Instead she makes her landing and it only causes more of the youngest of the settlement to dash into the drought dried cornfield. A few of the men and women approach. Some are dressed in military garb. Most of them are not armed, but a few carry hunting rifles. She puts her hands up and says, “We mean no harm.”

The rifles point at her. They would do little harm to the armor and Tony’s takes some comfort in that, but then Ava decides to show her vulnerability. Tony swears as the HUD disengages. He has to quickly switch over to the Jet to see what’s happened. Clint has it circling above and Tony only perceives what’s happening due to the comm link.

Ava has the faceplate open and her gauntlets retracted. “We only came on reports that you may have been infiltrated by Hydra.”

One of the women –she’s dressed in a t-shirt, heavy overalls, and oil smears mark her face. “Hydra? What world are you living in? Hydra died twenty five years ago with the State.”

Ava doesn’t correct her, but says, “We heard there was a weapons cache-.”

“Yeah, those are our weapons,” one of the men says. “Our weapons to defend against people like you. You’re part of them, right? You think you’re a god, ‘cause you got that Extremis or something.”

“No, I don’t have Extremis,” Ava says. She looks around at the fire consuming the one building as it arches over to the small huts. “I can help you put out the fire.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort. You’re one of those damned ‘Tards, aren’t you? Think you’re better than the rest of us. You living up there, thinking the Union’s got anything for us. This is what the Union gave us, hungry babies. Now you come here for our guns? The only way we got to protect ourselves?” The woman spits at the ground. “Get out. We ain’t got no use for you. We got our help.”

For a moment, Tony doesn’t know what she’s referring to until he sees the caravan on the horizon. They must have been called and Tony scans through the open communications to discover a distress call was sent out on a lower radio frequency, one that is barely used anymore. “They have back up.” He’s not sure anyone hears him.

“We would be willing to help,” Ava tries again. “Bring in the Department of Develop-.”

The woman shakes her head. “You ain’t getting it, honey. We don’t need your help. We ain’t part of your little Union. We never was. We are part of America and that’s the People’s Progress. We gonna take care of our own.” She steps right up to Ava, not intimidated in anyway. “Now, get the fuck off our land.”

Tony holds his breath and all of his nerves itch for action. He’s thousands of miles away from Ava and there’s nothing he can do. She doesn’t even have her damned faceplate down so he can get a clearer view of what she’s seeing. Ava nods once and then drops her hands – Tony squirms and curses.

“All right,” Ava says and the faceplate finally drops into place. “This isn’t a fight. We’re not here to fight you.”

“You could have fooled me,” the woman says and, as Ava shoots into the air with her gauntlets covering her hands, all of the rifles remain trained on her until she gets high into the clouds. Falcon and Clint follow after her. 

“Whose intel was this?” Clint says as Tony moves his consciousness to Ava’s armor. 

“Came in from the Union, from New York,” Ava says and her voice vibrates. “We nearly killed children.”

Tony tries to calm her. “You didn’t. That’s what counts. You didn’t.” 

“Yeah but they won’t take it that way. It’ll be all over media outlets that we attacked them,” Falcon says.

“And the People’s Progress came to their rescue,” Clint remarks and that’s when Tony cuts out. 

He should stay and talk with Ava on her flight back but he just can’t because he’s sure that Conor had something to do with this shit. He adjusts his awareness – sometimes it takes a while to come back to reality after he’s been living inside of Extremis. He still wobbles on his feet for a second as he rushes out of the main Dome to the Quart-Domes, accessing JARVIS as he does. “Where’s Conor?”

“Your son has seen Captain Rogers to his quarters.”

Tony heads in that direction. His brain on fire as he recalls the horror in Ava’s voice. What if she had killed a child? What would that have done to her? Conor set this up. Tony’s sure of it. When he bursts into the main living room of his suite, he finds Steve and Conor sitting with Steven playing blocks. Steven is chewing on two of them. Both Conor and Steve glance up to greet him, a refreshed look on Steve’s face. He looks healthy, but a little tired, a little too pale. 

“The doctor released me,” Steve says. Tony should ask about his status, what the doctor said, are they going to probe him. Instead, he directs his sights on Conor, but Steve interrupts him. “Doctor Ross wants to probe the net. I wanted you to be there when they do it, if that’s okay. Later today, if you have time?”

That jerks Tony from his anger, if only for a moment. “Yes, anything. Conor, I need to talk to you.”

Conor looks up from his nephew; there’s a genuine smile on his face. “Yeah, Pops?” He looks so damned innocent. Did he ever look that innocent when he was a teenager, after he tortured Steve? 

“I need to talk to you, but not in front of Steven.”

Steve glances between the two of them. “I can put Steven in his room for a bit.” He stands up and Steven reaches his hands up to his grandfather. He easily scoops up the toddler and carries him to the back bedroom of their assigned Quart-Dome. 

Once he’s out of ear shot, Tony advances on Conor. “Did you know?”

“Know?” Tony’s not fooled by the confusion marring Conor’s expression. “Know?”

“Did you know? The intel. It was bogus.”

Conor stands up, bumping Tony as he does and shakes his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What intel?”

“The intel, the mission,” Tony says and it takes all of his strength not to explode. “Did you fucking know?”

“I don’t know what mission you’re talking about, I barely know what the hell is going on around here. I don’t have the access you ha-.”

He grips Conor by the collar of his tattered hoodie, the one he refuses to stop wearing. “You knew. You had to have known. They were part of the People’s Progress, you little shit. Aren’t they your group?”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Steve says and rushes to pull them apart as Tony tightens his grasp. 

Tony refuses to let go and jerks Conor as the slender man tries to extricate himself. Conor says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Tony, please,” Steve says and tries to pull Conor away from him.

“He put Ava in danger. He nearly had her-.” Tony stops and eats his own words. “I know you had something to do with it.” All he can see is red and it washes over him in waves of heat, singeing his nerves. “You tried to ruin her. You always hated her.”

“Tony,” Steve says and this time uses his strength to pull them apart, succeeding. Tony stumbles back and Steve clutches Conor’s shirt. “What is going on here?”

He shouldn’t be putting Steve through this, not with the seizures. They have no idea what’s initiating the seizures and adding stress is not a great idea, but Tony can’t stop, can’t think of anything but the sound of Ava’s voice. Torn, wrecked, and hopeless when she realized what she could have done. “You knew.” 

Conor looks between the two, his mouth agape. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I swear. I was here, all this time. With you, Da or with Uncle Buck. That’s all.”

“And why didn’t Bucky go along on the mission. Is there a reason for that?” Tony snaps. He knows why, he does. But nothing seems logical or right.

“He stayed for me, Tony,” Steve says. “I don’t know what’s going on, but you need to calm down so we can figure it out.”

The whole room seem to vibrate with his trembling, seems to echo every breath he takes. “You don’t get it. He’s going to try and hurt you. I know it. It was his people, the People’s Progress, after Ava.”

Steve drops his hand and studies Conor. Tony’s not sure how much of the background story Steve has been able to catch up on, but there’s doubt in his eyes that mirrors what Tony’s feeling. “Conor?”

“I don’t own the People’s Progress. You gotta believe me, Da. I just spoke to them a few times. I have a few friends. I swear. I can even get in touch with them, if you want me to,” Conor says. He’s imploring them both, there’s a frantic need in his eyes as if he’s a child begging a loveless parent for protection and security. “I swear. I can get you in touch with them.”

Tony feels like shit, like he’s kicked his own dog, and maybe he has. “Killian? Hammer?”

“Yeah, yeah. And the top guy, the new guy. I can get you in touch with him. He’s really a good guy. I think you’d like him. He’s got a lot of combat training but he’s willing to put that aside and work with the people,” Conor says and the tension in the room steps down. “His name is Zemo. I think, you might, I think you might want to get in touch with him anyhow. Maybe we can put a meeting together. Get together. It would mean something if the Union would meet with him.”

“I’ve never heard of him,” Tony says as he cues Extremis to retrieve anything and everything about Zemo. “What’s his first name?”

“Helmut, I think. We all just called him the Baron most of the time,” Conor says. 

“Oh and that’s bodes well,” Tony mutters.

“Tony,” Steve says and then turns to Conor. “Can I have a few minutes with your Pops?”

Conor shrugs. “Sure, I’m gonna go see Uncle Buck. We have a gaming night planned.”

As he leaves, Tony shakes his head. He didn’t even question anything about his sister, about her plight, about checking in with her. When he turns back to Steve, for the first time he sees the same person he knew twenty five years ago – the man that rallied the resistance, that took them into a war, the man who sacrificed everything. 

“You need to get your emotions under control,” Steve states and doesn’t that just set Tony off.

“What the hell? Ava’s your daughter. I would think you’d care,” Tony says. Inwardly he chides himself for baiting Steve. But he’s in a crappy mood and all he wants is something to drink. He walks over to the small kitchen and searches through the cupboards. There’s not a drop of wine or any alcohol anywhere. “Shit.”

Steve’s standing with his arms crossed and his eyes like daggers on Tony. “You know, I’ve had a rough couple of decades. I like to have an easy couple of decades now. But that’s not possible. So how about we come to some understanding?”

“Like what? We just magically forget what Conor did? Or how about we just get cozy and accept that the thing in your head’s still active, or yay, how about we all have a picnic with the Baron. That sounds like fun,” Tony says.

Steve walks up to the counter island in the kitchen and slides onto a stool. “Tony, I don’t think life is supposed to be easy. But we have to accept some things before we can change them.”

He finds and starts the coffee. He needs something. “I thought we wanted to change the world for the better.”

“One of the first steps along the way is to accept where the world is right now. Otherwise we can never truly understand what has to be changed,” Steve says and points to the coffee maker. “Can I get a cup of that too?”

He’s probably not supposed to have the caffeine after a seizure but considering the serum, Tony doesn’t think it will matter. Tony pulls down two mugs. “Okay, so we accept that the world isn’t happily ever after now, even after twenty-five years of the fall of the State. And we accept that your son Conor’s got something up his sleeves.” He pours both of the cups and then sets them on the island between them. 

“Yes and yes.” Steve takes the cup and reaches for the sugar. With a spoon Tony hands to him. Steve adds some sugar and then tastes the coffee, hissing slightly. “So used to it burnt.”

Tony chuckles, relieved. “So you think there’s something more to Conor?”

“Yes, I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but I want to keep an open mind. Otherwise we’ll be too blinded by our presumptions that we won’t be ready one way or the other.” 

Tony intakes a deep breath, holds it, and then releases it. “How’d you get so smart?”

“Been with the best all these years,” Steve says and raises his mug. “I remembered more, you know.” It gets very quiet. “I remembered how I felt. How I wanted it to be real between us and not the net, how I wanted to touch you and kiss you and know that it was real.”

“I hoped it was,” Tony says in a soft murmur, but he doesn’t look up. He stares at his untouched coffee. 

“Can we see now?” Steve’s voice is as soft as Tony’s. Yet it set everything on high alert in Tony’s head. His head pops up and he meets Steve’s eyes.

“You don’t have to. You don’t need to pretend you feel any-.”

“Didn’t I say after my seizure I remembered? I remembered more of the feeling, and the need to be with you. And I would just like to know if that’s my feelings or something that’s a half remembered emotion fed to me by this thing in my head,” Steve says and he’s standing up, pushing the stool away. “I know that I’m not all here yet. That I have a lot to relearn and know. I know that I’m still in danger, that the thing in my head is still battling with the serum, but I want to catch a little bit of life again. Just a little.”

As Steve approaches him, Tony’s flight or fight response kicks in and he instantly wants to run. How many years did he reject Steve as the Designate? The last time he’d tried, he gave into the Designate’s advances – those memories – still haunt him today. He won’t do that again, but his mind refocuses, recenters on the fact that this is not the Designate, this is Steve. They know it. He knows it.

“Steve?” Maybe it’s a query, maybe he needs to know in these stressful times that he can have something sweet and nice and on this side of perfection. 

“Yeah, it’s me,” Steve says and he slides his hands around Tony’s waist. “Is this… is this okay? I don’t know, Tony. You look like you’re going to be sick.”

“I might puke,” he admits.

Steve starts to step away but Tony grabs for him and drags him back. “No, no, I’m fine. I just – it’s been a long day or week or decade or so.”

“Yeah, yeah, it has been.” 

The words drift and slow. He leans down as Tony eases into Steve’s touch and accepts the loose embrace. It feels welcoming and warm. He hasn’t been touched like this in so long. He didn’t realize the paucity he’d experience. How starved he was – is. With only a whispered please, Steve bends and brushes his lips over Tony’s mouth. It is the barest of touches, so light it feels like nothing at all but it sends a shiver down Tony’s spine, opens up those closed places held by hostile memories, releases the pain and hope all at once and then Tony’s clinging to Steve, grasping at his shirt sleeves and dragging him closer to deepen the kiss. 

Steve opens and accepts the kiss, pursuing more than only complying and it’s everything and just the beginning to Tony. He’s breathless in the kiss but he doesn’t want it to end. He doesn’t want to have to come up for a breath, and he’s willing to allow all the air from his body to be stolen to just live in this single moment. He should worried. He should be taking care of the hundred possibilities and issues in the world. He should be greeting Ava and checking to see if she’s okay. He should be after Conor and grilling him on what’s happened and why it is happening, but right now, this moment – this moment is his. He’s been suffering and sacrificing for ages. He hasn’t taken. It hasn’t been about him and while he doesn’t resent those years, he never realized just how hungry he’d been until this moment. He hasn’t been selfish for decades – right now, today, here, he wants this and he’ll take it.

Steve’s hands come up and cradle his face and Tony feels anxious and fine quakes telegraph off of him. But he continues and he tastes and kisses and licks as he - almost like a man so intoxicated he cannot stop - grazes his lips and teeth along the fine tender part of Tony’s throat. He’s murmuring and mumbling as he tastes, “Waited so long, so long for you.”

Tony cannot help but finally answer, finally accept, “You have me. You have me.”

Of course as he relaxes into the moment, JARVIS interrupts him. “Sir, your daughter, Mister Wilson, and Mister Barton have arrived at the base.”

Tony wants to ignore it, but Steve breaks it off and looks at him. That’s when Tony realizes it wasn’t just in his head but announced into the room. Steve’s breathless and his lips are bruised red. “JARVIS?”

“Yes, Captain Rogers?”

“Is she okay?”

“She seems unsettled,” JARVIS answers.

Steve meets Tony’s gaze and then releases his hold. “We should go.”

“Yes, yes we should,” Tony says but he doesn’t move. It’s too hard to break the trance and he thinks that Steve might have the same problem because neither one of them steps away or stops touching the other. 

“Sir?” JARVIS says.

Tony’s shoulders slump and he bows his head. He knows Ava and what’s just happened is more important. Everything is so important, but this moment is just as critical to Tony. “Coming.”

“Yes, sir. I wanted to also mention that I currently have noticed that Mister Barnes is somewhat irritated or agitated.”

Steve frowns and tilts his head. “Wasn’t Conor going to talk with him?”

“Your son is currently in the room with him,” JARVIS replies.

Tony doesn’t inquire to JARVIS but instead activates Extremis and sinks deep into its workings. He calls forth the base surveillance, wipes away the security protocols, hacks through all the personal safety procedures and accesses the room where Bucky and Conor are sitting.

“They’re sitting in Barnes’ quarters,” Tony says. He holds up a finger to stop Steve from saying anything. “He’s speaking in Russian.”

“Bucky?”

“No,” Tony says. “Conor.”

“I didn’t know he knew Russian,” Steve replies.

“Neither did I,” Tony states and then adds, “JARVIS, translate all of the Russian.”

JARVIS translates the words but they make no sense. They are just words, a list of words and as Tony watches Barnes turns into something different, something foreign, something dangerous. 

“Longing, Rusted, Seventeen, Daybreak, Furnace, Nine, Benign, Homecoming, One, Freight Car.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> definitions come from the online web dictionary. 
> 
> I must apologize for the delay. I had a few other pressing issues and I took some time off before the holidays to get my head on straight and to focus on RL for a while. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. We have finally gotten into the REAL story. Phew! Only 50k words into the plot!!

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a long overdue sequel to The Silence In Between. It is not going to be an easy fix, so don't expect that. But after all the fandom angst over the last month, I decided it was time to give something back to my readers. So now you have the sequel (which turns out is going to be larger and longer than a simple coda).
> 
> For updates of my work - follow me on [tumblr](https://winterstar95.tumblr.com)
> 
> Translation Notes Throughout the story Latin is used - this is roughly translated Latin and not good latin but it is supposed to be that way.
> 
> Please be aware that the tags will change as I move through the story. This story will be on par with the last - so be ready for it! I will try and add any triggers to the warnings. Thank you.
> 
> The Grains or grain elevators converted - ideas of the inside can be found [here](http://www.dezeen.com/2014/02/27/heatherwick-gallery-grain-silo-cape-town-va-waterfront)
> 
> Extremis in this verse is an amalgamate of what it is in MCU and in the comics, and my own ideas.


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